This is your SolarWakeup for May 13th, 2024

Noisy Week. We enter this week with all the talk about what the 301 tariff review will bring us and headlines focused on the EV tariffs. The solar and storage industries focused their advocacy to kickstart domestic manufacturing without impacting the markets. Ultimately the hope is that the trade representative understands that many portions of the supply chain aren’t available here yet and we can’t go back to the 1-yard line without disrupting the enormous economic output of the industry. Moreover, with the grid stressed and in need for new generation, solar is the most reliable generation builder at the moment.

The Anti CleanTech Pitch. There’s always a hope to be a non-partisan issue, to rise above the gridlock in DC. Who wouldn’t solar to grow and do well, create jobs etc, even when polling has historically always had solar in the 80% plus range. When it comes to the Presidential election Trump can’t really hit Biden on oil production because Biden has seen oil production rise to all-time highs but he can promise to disrupt the electrification in transportation as much as possible. We all know that politics is a full contact sport, I’ve said it here many times, but a candidate trading executive action openly for fundraising is a bit more than I’ve seen publicly and privately. So let me make a fundraise pitch. SEIA has the SolarPAC, which advances our causes. They do so across both parties and it has been very successful strategy but it needs more funding that can only be raised in lower dollar thresholds. Check that out here.

Opinion

 

Best, Yann