This is your SolarWakeup for December 11th, 2019
More Tomorrow. Travel means less time for columns. Make your calls to Congress and send me your news!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 10th, 2019
Fix The Link. Here is the correct link to celebrate solar with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Thursday at 1:30pm. Sorry for the error yesterday.
One Last ITC Push. SEIA is asking you to reach out to your member of Congress. This is the way to do it digitally or you can find your rep by clicking here. We have an opportunity to get an extension but you have to make a call today, not tomorrow or the day after. This is the time..
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Bloomberg Goes Global. The former mayor of New York City and Johns Hopkins alumni, Michael Bloomberg, is leading an event on climate change at the COP25 proceedings in Madrid before jetting to California to talk about policies he foresees helping the wild fires in the golden state. With additional TV ad buys, Bloomberg now has the most spend in the field of candidates on TV..
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Blackrock’s Investment Focus. A spokesperson for Blackrock gave an interesting quote on their new fund’s focus with regard to solar. Here’s what they mean when they say that they see opportunities in C&I and storage. As the fund looks to invest $2.5billion dollars, the portfolio managers will want the type of returns they are being told exist in C&I and energy storage (double digits, sometimes). They could invest the full fund quickly in solar farms yielding single digits, but that wouldn’t have the type of juice they are looking for. Quickly, they will find that deploying this scale of capital is going to be a challenge to do in the higher yielding parts of the market.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 9th, 2019
He’s Back, Come See Arnold Talk Solar. This Thursday the State of California is celebrating one of solar’s biggest accomplishments, 1 million solar roofs. At a public event, former Governor Schwarzenegger will be unveiling the 1 millionth roof alongside CALSSA’s Bernadette Del Chiaro. Solar in California has no political aisles, it benefits all and Governors from both parties have supported our industry. Clovis is in the Central Valley of the State and you’re invited to be there. We want to show Arnold that when he took a bet on solar many years ago, he was right. A few hours of your time is worth it, reporters in solar should be there as well! Here is the RSVP link
The Next Million. What does the next million look like? It will have plenty of power because CALSSA is announcing the next target of 1 million solar batteries. Wild fires, blackouts and rate schedule changes are causing more and more solar installations to get batteries. Nationally, batteries are attaching at a rate of 15-20% with some areas of California going much higher. That means that we are looking to grow the market to 2-4million solar roofs to get to the 1million solar batteries. If you’re doing the math, the goal is to get to over $10billion market potential for you, the installer or hardware provider. That’s a big audacious goal and we want you to help.
Another Banking Data Point. When the European Investment Bank stops lending to a particular lender, it has ripple effects to the private sector. Typically, banks like the EIB do the heavy lifting and take a particular risk and if they are out it means that other banks don’t follow. The focus is to align the strategy with the policy goals of the EU, in this case renewables. Look for capital to dry up for non-renewables relatively quickly.
Tackling Big Pollution. Making metals is energy intensive and contributes somewhere between 6-7% of the global carbon emissions. That is why a Missouri corporate deal for wind energy is an indicator that could have global implications. In Missouri, steel and aluminum producers get subsidized electricity prices which means that the wind deal was not only cleaner but also cheaper than the cheapest market electricity rate before.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 6th, 2019
A Trade Fight Day. The ITC (trade commission) held their mid-year review for the 201 tariffs to see if they should continue declining or otherwise. Suniva’s Matt Card, apparently still employed by the company, spoke on behalf of the tariffs without giving an update on Suniva’s return to the market. Hanwha Q-Cells also spoke publicly in favor of the 201 tariffs. SEIA, contractors and others spoke in favor of the American solar jobs that are impacted or lost because of the counterproductive tariffs. Meanwhile a court struck down the White House attempt to rescind the bifacial tariff exemption and Bloomberg interviewed Sunpower’s CEO on the topic of tariffs.
BP Gets In Deeper. BP has struck a deal to offer renewable energy from wind and solar farms for Amazon’s data centers in Europe. The deal also announced that BP increased their stake in Lightsource, the developer active in both European and US markets.
Corporate Storage Deal. Not that kind of deal. GM and LG Chem announced a JV to build a $2.3billion battery manufacturing plant in Ohio. In combination with the First Solar Youngstown plant, Ohio may want to revisit their anti-RPS stance given the manufacturing hub they’ve created in the state.
Speaking Of Storage. At GTM’s storage event in Denver, Colorado’s Governor showed up and spoke about his bullish position on energy storage and how it will help get Colorado to 100% renewable energy.
But The Workforce Needs. While we are all bullish on the growth of the market, we need to continue thinking about how we create a bigger labor force for our industry. Now that markets are getting geographically closer to the impacted coal markets, I wonder when installers start hiring labor that is trained in solar installations and travel to solar projects.
1 Million Solar Roofs. Speaking of amazing things, CALSSA will be having a big event next Thursday in Clovis, CA to commemorate 1 million solar roofs, an ambitious goal set during Governor Schwarzenegger’s time in Sacramento. The hallmark legislation sparked an industry that benefits us all and we’d love to have you in Clovis. If you can make it and travel there next Thursday, your support is needed and appreciated. More info to come including big names at the event.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 5th, 2019
Solar, Activate. Time for solar to get loud once again. We need you to make calls to Congress and ask for the ITC to be extended. Here is the call to action link. Please fill it out and ask your colleagues/employees to do the same. In the wake of the White House attack on each of you, we need to explain that we represent real American jobs.
CALSSA. Today is my first day on the job as a member of the board at CALSSA. As part of your support for what we do, please join as a member and make me look good. Hit reply to this email and ask me to get you in touch with the membership team. You can also do that right here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 4th, 2019
The Tariff Effects. SEIA released a report showing that the solar tariffs have caused more than 62,000 job losses or missed growth. At least $19billion in private investment was lost while 10.5GW of solar was not installed. The harm hit the States that have the most borderline markets already that could have created job and business opportunities if US modules were priced at the same level as other markets globally.
Trump White House Claims ‘Fake News’. Navarro called SEIA “a loose confederation of Chinese solar companies seeking to destroy American solar manufacturing jobs and U.S. solar installers that want cheap Chinese panels and don’t care how many American jobs are destroyed by China’s heavily subsidized industry.”
SEIA’s Abby Hopper Responds. “We were heartened to hear the president talk today about his concern over climate change, and I think we are all in agreement that greater use of solar energy and a strong solar manufacturing presence is one way we can meet our collective goals of continuing American economic growth and addressing climate change in a meaningful way. We’d be thrilled if Mr. Navarro would come to one of our conferences and meet some of the 240,000 Americans who work in this great industry, including the tens of thousands of people who are manufacturing solar products. We look forward to working with the Trump administration on ways to advance real manufacturing growth without these particularly counterproductive tariffs.”
SolarWakeup Comments. The White House doesn’t have to like the report and can even rebut it. They could have easily countered by saying that solar is growing and new manufacturing has been built in the US thanks to their policy. Instead they go straight to the fake news and the kicker quote. SEIA is a lot of things and not perfect from my standpoint but diminishing the association to a “loose confederation” or “Chinese solar companies” that “don’t care about American jobs” is complete malarkey. Most of you reading this newsletter are members of SEIA and know that the jobs you create and you hold are cared about. I don’t care what party you come from, there should be robust condemnation of the Navarro comments.
A New Era Of Investment. Axios’s Dan Primack, whom I ran into at SFO yesterday, is out with a renewable energy article. This is news by itself given that he covers private equity in greater detail than any reporter. The TL:DR is capital is drying up for fossil fuel generation and a lot of the investment is going to go towards renewable energy. Of course we have to make sure the pipeline is robust enough for the capital to be interested. The further takeaway is that executives and board directors will have adjust their messaging and strategy going forward. Watch this space.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 3rd, 2019
Unbundle Solar. “I’d tell my mom to sign up” is the best headline of 2019. I’ve had some great conversations with community solar executives as well as pondered my hopes as to where this market goes this year. All of it can be summed up to this headline because that is where we need to be. There is a never ending demand for community solar and more needs to be developed. 2021 is the year that this market takes off with a nice run-up continuing next year.
Co-op Opportunities. The western co-ops have been largely untapped by solar developers because of the agreement with Tri-State. This agreement limits how much each co-op can contract independent of the group. Once this dam breaks, and it will, you will see some incredible capacity of solar getting contracted. This may even open a new merchant market.
EV Through Policy? Los Angeles is looking to have 80% of new vehicles be electric by 2028. Through incentives, infrastructure and working with ride hailing companies, it should be achievable. Here’s my question though. San Jose is currently at 21%, almost 3x Los Angeles. What makes EVs more common in the Bay Area than their southern partners? Maybe we should figure that out before embarking in a policy driven game of guess what?
Personnel Moves. Eric Wesoff is back! The former Editor-in-Chief at Greenwich Media is now the editor of PV-Magazine USA after former editor, Christian Roselund, left for Rocky Mountain Institute. Welcome back Eric!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for December 2nd, 2019
Welcome Back. Thank you for letting me take a week off last week, because life has been busy we skipped right over the 7 year anniversary of SolarWakeup and the 2,500th edition of the daily newsletter. We’re read more than a million times a year and growing now and for that I am thankful.
The Tweet To Ponder. I’ve talked about the need to spend on policy in the past and we, as a solar industry, still don’t. It is the agenda item most ignored in board rooms because we feel like we’ve never been able to show the payback of the policy spend. So let’s look at how it works when the big boys do it. Here are a list of companies and their political contributions in anticipation of the tax bill of last year, just one example. Look at Pharma, oil, gas, utilities or defense as other examples of how the US political system goes round. Your spend doesn’t need to be just contributions, you can do that through SEIA PAC or the CALSSA PAC or supporting some of the trade groups. Add a zero to your policy budget for next year, please.
Big Problem, Big Names, Big Hopes. John Kerry is launching World War Zero. A group that includes The Who’s who of the global establishment to highlight the national security risk and wartime mobilization caused by global warming. The group includes Presidents Clinton and Carter as well as GOP governors Kasich and Schwarzenegger. The celebrities joining the group include Leonardo DiCaprio and Sting. Interestingly, World War Zero will not propose policies instead opting to make itself known in battleground states and speaking at military bases that are impacted by climate change.
Different Type Of Activism. Two variations of activism that could have an impact on the energy markets. If you watched the Yale-Harvard football game last you saw that student activists stopped the game from restarting for the second half. They were protesting for the divestment of the Yale and Harvard endowments. This is in fact a way to impact the decision making process of large investors and similar to hedge fund TCI ($26B AUM) arguing that directors should be more transparent in their company’s polluting activities.
The Integrated Storage Play. Enphase has opened their website for pre-orders of their Ensemble energy storage platform. The pre-order is a great new tool to gauge interest and create a pipeline ahead of release. It’s also a great tool for supply chain folks to make sure they are getting enough of what they need and keep customers happy. The micro inverter to energy storage platform is the launching off point for the IQ8 system that will open new potential revenue streams like what we saw from Sunrun/National Grid in ISO-NE earlier this year.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 21st, 2019
More column tomorrow. I’ll be off next week, hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday week. SolarWakeup will publish again on Friday and then return to your inbox on December 2nd.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 20th, 2019
We’re In The Game. With the release of a Discussion Draft, Chairman Neal of the House Ways and Means Committee put the solar ITC on the track to get a 5 year extension. This is not a bill, nothing has been voted on and nothing has been decided except this was the political step to get the ITC moving forward. The pathway remains the same as before, a massive spending bill at the end of the year that gets the House and Senate to put political barriers aside to keep the government operating. What solar needs to do now is show the politicians that solar has jobs, opportunity and political power so that when the final deal gets negotiated, solar isn’t left out.
Don’t Stop The Pressure. Click Here and fill out the call to action. Send your letter to your member of Congress and if you have a twitter account make sure to blast it as well. The entire process takes 60 seconds. Now that we are in the game, we have to make sure we cross the finish line. Democracy is a full contact sport and we have to push our message. Jake Marshall from CED Greentech San Diego showed me a picture of a computer they put out for customers to use to sign the call the action, I urge you all to steal the idea and do the same. Anywhere you come in contact with solar supporters, put out the webpage.
Make A Call. Take another 5 minutes and call your member of the House, particularly those of you in AZ, CO, CA, NV and NY. Not all of your employees and colleagues read this newsletter, please forward this email to them and encourage them to fill it out as well. Let’s get more letters sent out today and everyday, click here now! Post one of these two paragraphs on LinkedIn and tag me and SolarWakeup to get the post re-shared. Let’s see how many folks we can get involved in the political process.
Why This Matters. US Energy related carbon emissions went up 2.7% last year, a trend in the wrong direction tied to the economic growth that the US continues to experience. At this time in history, the ITC would allow the energy sector to decarbonize and adding storage to the credit would help replace even more fossil based generation.
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Yann