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Yann
Quick Take. Biden increased 301 tariffs, with right concepts. Delaying storage to 2026 to give the industry room to create a domestic supply chain and removing tariffs on the equipment needed to build solar factories in America.
Little Big Wins. Solar trade advocates fought behind the scenes to shape these wins that have big impacts, thank you.
Taking Names. Tomorrow you can watch the preliminary hearing for the latest trade AD/CVD trade case. I won’t post the agenda with who’s testifying in favor of destroying America’s solar market but you can watch the proceedings or login to the EDIS system and see the agenda. In case you want to take names and prioritize your partners, but that’s up to you.
Heading North. Sending this from the usual 37,000 feet as I spend a few days in two of my favorite cities, DC and Annapolis. Always great to get some summertime Chesapeake sunshine!
Hats Off To AJR. I got to spend last night with my two sons at an AJR concert, the first concert for my youngest. Amazing show and highly recommend to any fellow AJR fans reading this.
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Big Grid. FERC is moving to push for more capital to flow towards grid build-outs, in line with State regulators approving most of the grid optimization requests from IOUs. The no-vote from FERC was a cop-out saying that this is a giveaway to developers when in reality there’s just not enough generation on the grid for the load growth ahead. Interesting how rate based gas power plants never have grid issues…
Unavailable Batteries. Texas has become a hot energy storage market with many unsure how long the ancillary service market will continue (for the foreseeable future given the demand growth and unreliable power plants). On the other hand, storage has a major problem with many storage projects operating at 60-70% availability and less in some cases where commissioning and balancing are dragging project starts by a year plus. This will have to get resolved, in some cases by recommissioning systems and in others by doing optimization projects with folks that “know where to hit the hammer”. Obviously, I have a unique perspective on this, and reminds me of the early days of solar when folks were doing everything in projects because the landscape had not yet matured.
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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.
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Yann