This is your SolarWakeup for November 19th, 2019
ITC Call To Action. 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. Why? Congress is going to release tax extenders very soon and we have to be in the bill. We’re alive until we’re not and I guarantee you that this is the most important 60 seconds of your career this year. 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 10,000 letters sent out today, click here now!
The Courts Opine. I’ve been lightly following the various court cases making their way through the system. The one with the most sober headline is against Exxon about what they knew about climate change in the 70s. I don’t expect this to be a case similar to the tobacco companies but money in a settlement seems like the most obvious win for the plaintiffs. Similar to the VW settlements, some of these dollars could drive new markets or R&D spending to counter the effects.
More Blackout Notices. Moments ago I received another PSPS blackout notice from my new friends at PG&E. We’re seeing each other so often that people may start rumors about our friendship. Regardless of a blackout actually happening every notice creates a new sense of panic in consumers’ minds. This means that every notice of a power outage reignites those solar leads we wrote about last month and with storage adoption reaching 15% of solar installs, you’re starting to see real traction in this space.
Personnel Moves. In a move that shows maturity in a market, storage/DER/microgrid pioneer AMS has moved their former VP of Product to CEO. Susan Kennedy is moving to board chair and the CEO role goes to Seyed Madaeni. Madaeni build their algorithmic trading platform that launched in Australia and looks to go live in California as well.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 18th, 2019
Nothing To See Here. A few weeks ago it was announced that regulators in MA were opening an investigation into the interconnection practices. Going as far back to my last SolarWakeup Live! in Boston, solar was being stifled by delayed and expensive interconnections. As soon as the investigation is announced, National Grid finds an extra 300MW that can connect without any cost. That’s great but what would be better is a transparent, speedy process so that development can continue past stops and starts.
A New Era. Ford unveiled their first real electric car, a crossover named Mustang. I’m going to judge it by the cover and headline numbers as a winner. Pricing comes in at mid 40s with a standard 230 mile range and an option to get to 300 miles. In 2021, expect two versions of the Mustang GT to come out as well. The looks of the car are great as well, like a Mustang version of a BMW X6. We shall see how it does, but it’s the first electric car not from Tesla that I find compelling. Why is this important to solar? Homes with electric cars are much more likely to put solar on their home and think about it for their office. Plus the additional load makes the need for new generation more likely.
The Norm Going Forward. The smaller Arizona utility is adding a 250MW solar plant that also includes storage. The battery will be a 250MW/1GWh version that will allow the plant to shape its peak and move production to higher value. Aside from grid services, I would expect that the plant release energy sometime mid day and recharge to have a full load for the morning peak. If SRP releases an operating plan, I will make sure to pass that along.
Lots of Chatter. The farmer goes solar chatter is increasing in strength and frequency. This story is important to the future of solar in America and hopefully our industry learns ways to tell more of it.
Congrats. Christian Roselund is leaving his post at PV-Magazine to become the editorial director at Rocky Mountain Institute. A great addition at RMI, congratulations to Christian on the new gig.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 15th, 2019
New Home Solar Lives. On Wednesday, the CEC pushed a decision that could have hurt the solar on new home requirement requested by the utilities. This will come back and hopefully with local community solar for multi family units only.
Ratings and Advance Rates. More securitization are being done in solar. Once a novel concept, almost every quarterly filing highlights another securitization, some of which are now rated A and offer mortgage level rates.
Compete and Improve. It’s true, renewables have to compete on price without the backstop of a guaranteed return and pay for the infrastructure improvement. Many of these improvements are priced to hurt the renewable generation which caused the MA regulators to open an investigation into the local utility.
The Transition. Earlier this week Tesla received a prestigious German auto award and then announced a new factory in Berlin. While Tesla is littered in online polarization, there is no doubt that companies like VW and Mercedes have advanced their timelines by a decade because of their success. Elon was on stage with the VW CEO this week, an interesting dynamic.
Census and Local Shows. Make sure your company fills out the Solar Jobs Census and if you are in the Maryland/DC area, attend the MDV SEIA conference Solar Focus.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 14th, 2019
Opinion
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 13th, 2019
Growth, Training Required. Sunrun reported their quarterly earnings yesterday and CEO Lynn Jurich led with the blackouts in California. Sales are booming for the company, as with the market, but Lynn highlighted the lagging installation numbers. With 600 jobs listed by the company, it reminds us of the work we need to do to train the workforce all installers need to get solar installed. If only there was a way to merge the impact from coal bankruptcies with the location of solar installation jobs. From a manufacturer’s standpoint, I think a lot about how we can be helpful in the training of the workforce. We have the facilities and knowledge but lack the time and resource to bring folks in and let them know that training is available.
More Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. It’s that time of year again – The Solar Foundation needs your help to complete the Solar Jobs Census. The nonprofit organization is preparing its tenth annual report that is the authoritative source of solar employment numbers, nationwide and state by state. Please help them succeed by completing the Solar Jobs Census survey now.
The DG Microgrid, Financed. Vivint Solar is out with a new PPA product that pairs solar with storage. This goes into the current state of mind of consumers that just had a blackout and are thinking about the value storage would have provided to them. As time passes, that values goes back down to zero and the consumer is no longer interested in paying for the value it creates.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 12th, 2019
Out Of One, Come Two. Yesterday Sunpower announced that the company will be splitting into two separate entities. By bringing in $298mm in new capital into the module manufacturing business, Maxeon Solar is born. Maxeon will take over the manufacturing side of the Sunpower business, based in Singapore, and trade on the NASDAQ. The $298mm investment comes at a valuation of ~$1bb and is made by China’s TZS Zhonghuan Semiconductor. The transaction was unanimously approved by the board and is expected to spin off in Q2 2020. Maxeon will retain exclusive supply to Sunpower in the US and Canada. For more on this transaction, Sunpower was kind enough to explain it all in this presentation.
The Downstream Play. Sunrun, Vivint Solar and Sunnova have a new publicly listed competitor. Sunpower is now fully committed to the DG segment. Slide 31 of the above presentation shows that we are thinking the same thing. Sunpower is also telling shareholders that they think they should be valued closer to $3bb from the $1bb they are currently trading at which is the entire purpose of this split. Sunpower has a tremendously loyal dealer network that co-brands their companies as ‘by Sunpower’ which is a powerful marketing tool. There is still some work to be done but in a world where module and inverter supply is constrained, Sunpower dealers now have priority supply agreements with Maxeon and Enphase.
Changing New Home Solar. Here is the scoop about the work around that the utilities and some home builders are trying when it comes to the new home solar mandate. To start, an important note, home builders have no additional cost to add solar to the new homes. Solar financing companies will cover those costs for the builder and still pass along savings to the new home owners. Through a filing by SMUD, they are attempting to let home builders achieve the requirement for solar by allocating the homes to solar farms labeled as ‘community solar’ well away from the community. This will in no way help achieve more distributed generation and allow the future of micrograms to be built out. As the California Energy Commission votes on this proposal on Wednesday, it appears that the California home builders association is split on this. One of the largest homebuilders, Lennar, is against this broad proposal to eliminate the rooftop solar mandate and is expected to speak out against it at the hearing.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 11th, 2019
Thank you to all the veterans reading right now. My family and I greatly appreciate your service to the Country.
Thank You! With your support I was elected to the board of CALSSA. I’ve had the pleasure of working with CALSSA over the past decade and in the past year even more so. Bernadette and the CALSSA team do amazing work creating the largest State market in the US and I’m excited to get involved with more responsibility. Policy is business development as we work together to advance the markets.
The Next Decade. We are going into the next decade with unprecedented public support, cost competitive systems, and more than 3.3GW of required additional capacity in the California power market alone. We know how to solve these issues as a team, through DG, community solar and large scale solar with a sprinkle of storage everywhere.
Undermining Intentions. The politics in our market continue to get a bit more complicated but we are well prepared for them. One example is how SMUD is trying to circumvent the new home solar mandate by trying to take the solar panels off the roof and solve it with what amounts to SREC purchases. There was no legislative intention to allow this to happen but rule making is always an important time for executing on new laws. I’ll be digging further into this since there appears to be more to the story.
Don’t Hold Your Breath. SEIA was granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) by a judge to hold the repeal of the bifacial module exemption for a few weeks but all indication is that it will not hold longer than that. There are some messy politics at play in the tariffs in an ever changing landscape. It’s too early to really assign much of the blame but the picture seems to be clearing up. At some point, however, we will need to understand that the industry that works together will succeed together. It will not have a winner take all scenario, people should stop trying for that.
More Demand. I’ve written about this in the past. When there is going to be a real choice of EVs in the market, with the ever expanding charging infrastructure, we will enter a new era of electric demand for transportation.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 8th, 2019
All About Scaling. Groups like REBA are working to make the corporate procurement deals repeatable and less scary. This effort would drastically expand the customer base and speed up the development process for renewables.
The LCOE Report. The annual LCOE report from Lazard is out. It is reaching levels of importance within even Lazard that makes headlines. The report is always informative and shows the progress of renewables based on the basic tenet of cost per kWh. This year it also resulted in an op-ed in Bloomberg written by former head of CBO and OMB, Peter Orszag.
Election Consequences. As you’ve seen, the State of Virginia has shifted to democrat control by a slim margin, something that happened for the first time in a long while. This means that the legislature will be choosing the members of the corporation commission. Dominion may desire to build 1.5GW and the legislature may want to review that choice.
Big Congrats. Congrats to Vote Solar for their new partnership with Bloomberg’s Beyond Fossil Fuel campaign. Maybe their first stop will be Virginia? Also, congratulations to the SEIA board members that won last week’s election. A passionate and diverse group of solar professionals that will do a great job moving the solar industry forward.
National RFP. This is a message for the plethora of utility scale developers and investors that read this newsletter. An informal poll if you will. Let’s assume a 100MW project anywhere in the continental US with the output sold to a creditworthy entity, like the State’s university. Which State would have the highest price and what variable is the most impactful? What would you think is the highest rate that such a project would need?
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 7th, 2019
Back For More. More column coming tomorrow.
Let’s Do Something. Really frightening data coming out about rising oceans already being locked in.
Earnings. What’s it going to take to get a public solar company to be valued the same way as Uber?
Chapter 11 Impacts. PG&E being in bankruptcy is a problem for lots of businesses, including SPVs that own solar projects that sell energy to PG&E.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 6th, 2019
Storage Day. Lots of storage news today, an RFP from Bay Area CCAs, large IPPs getting involved and a review of the blackouts from NPR. How much cheaper does residential storage need to get before it becomes an automatic addition? Is there a tariff arbitrage range where the time of use pays for it?
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Yann