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Rising Rates. Electricity rates are rising at a pace faster than the most absurd models I saw back 20 years ago. With the demand continuing to increase and the economy thirsty for growth underpinned by that demand, i.e. data centers. There is also a renaissance for manufacturing which requires new energy access with high capacity which translates into new utility capex, all of which is made more expensive given where today’s cost of money is. In some ways, utilities are like banks, they front the capital for infrastructure and generation (mostly infrastructure) which is then recouped by selling electrons and power via demand charges. The problem is that the total capex is spread across the board and consumers, which are largely reducing their demand, are also paying for the infrastructure investments for the corporate growth load. Solar net metering gets a knock for costing consumers money, but in reality solar has reduced the need for distribution investments.
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The Carter Panels. Establishing American Energy Dominance (a SEIA 2025 policy priority) has some roots in the Carter era and decade of oil turmoil. During the Carter administration, the White House installed solar thermal panels over the White House pool and then the Reagan admin pulled them off. A decade ago I received a tip that the Obama White House had installed PV panels on the actual White House roof but I never asked what happened to the original Carter panels. So today’s story about their provenance is quite a nice break from the usual noise coming from DC.
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Station Identification. Welcome to 2025, the 13th year running SolarWakeup for me. For those of that joined us in the past year, you may not know what this is all about or who I am. My name is Yann Brandt and for the better part of my solar career I have started my day by publishing this newsletter. The first newsletter went out to 37 people, and today’s will go to nearly 8,000. In the world of email newsletters that’s not a big number but the SolarWakeup community has grown to be its own phenomenon for which I’m grateful. While I love doing this, I have a day job and get to interact with many of you and help each other find successes. That job today is as CEO of FTC Solar, the tracker manufacturer serving many utility scale solar farms, so if there’s a way for me to be helpful to you, just hit reply on any of these emails and it comes directly to me. Cheers to an amazing 2025 and keep cleaning up that solar spill!
The 2025 Outlook. As I think about 2025 and what it brings, I can only think of some version of uncertainty. Don’t view that as a negative sentiment, on the positive side there is lots to do with regulation and bureaucracy in interconnections, permitting and development approvals that would provide more projects. The President’s desire to lower the cost of capital could also play a big role in solar’s year. On the other hand we don’t know what we will see with the solar portion of the IRA, I say we don’t know because solar is incredibly popular and the margins in DC are razor thin. Solar was a $60billion market last year and the appetite for solar energy is at an all-time high especially with the Silicon Valley execs that are running many portions of the DC ecosystem now. Microsoft wants to build $80billion worth of data centers and I’d assume that most of their energy will come from solar. Of course the solar and now the battery market will have to deal with trade issues, how those play out is to be determined as well, hence uncertain what it means for us. So at the end of the day, I’m optimistic that there are known risks on the horizon that are being advocated thoroughly by well funded trade associations so as along as the solar industry works intelligently and focuses on smart business decisions, we’ll be in a good spot come the end of the year.
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