This is your SolarWakeup for June 25th, 2019
Is It Progressive? The headlines about the democratic primary is that the climate discussion is pushing the field to the left. I think that is entirely missing the point given that we’ve been trying to solve energy issues for decades and that many States passed 20% RPS policies more than a decade ago. This isn’t a political shift to the left, this is solving a massive climate crisis through policy because when it comes to highly regulated markets, only government can do that. Putting seat belts in cars and eliminating smoking in airplanes wasn’t a shift to the left, it was common sense.
Is It Denial? Take a look at the other side of the spectrum, Duke Energy’s IRP in Indiana is a good example. Coal plants that stay open for decades even though that increases the cost to consumers (even when Pence thinks that clean coal is the future) and new gas plants when they aren’t the cheapest option (Duke should ask NextEra about that). There should be a harder look, not only at the monopoly business model, but the decisions that are made counter to the best interests of the consumers.
The Gas Tax Cost Shift. This is true. EVs don’t pay for the typical gas tax that is included in the cost of fuel which pays for roads, highways etc. There will undoubtedly have to be an equivalent fee on the electricity used to charge electric vehicles once they’ve crossed the chasm in adoption. BUT, at the same time, EV owners including operators of charging stations will have to renegotiate their negative cost shift since they are heavy electricity users and pay for a higher portion of the grid cost than the non EV owners.
China Grows Roots. China’s Silk Road Fund is buying 49% of ACWA, the Saudi renewable energy development company that is active across the African continent and Middle East.
Nominations Ahead. I always enjoy seeing nominations and winners in the Cleantech space because it introduces me and the market to people I haven’t met yet. Now is your chance to put forth your names.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 24th, 2019
Call Your Representative. Don’t forget to call your member of Congress and ask them to fight for the ITC to be included in the tax extenders bill. This is a crucial time to fight for your industry especially in residential, the credits will disappear before you know. Click here to find your Congresswoman or call (202) 224-3121 to have the operator connect you.
The New Energy Outlook. Bloomberg has released the annual energy outlook which is a forward looking view on the global energy markets. You can see the highlights here and catch the analyst talking about it in the link below.
Schletter US Factory Auction. I didn’t realize this happened but Schletter auctioned off its factory in Shelby, NC. The reality is that in-house manufacturing requires tremendous volume and backlog, something that is difficult to achieve with utility scale and C&I racking systems especially with a competitive market. Maybe the idea is to rebuild the company with an outsourced model.
New York Times Gets This Wrong. The New York Times tested “EVs” by driving roundtrip from LA to Las Vegas. The 8 hours of driving took 5 hours of charging. Of course this ‘test drive’ wasn’t done in a Tesla, it was done in a Chevy Bolt which naturally skews the entire test. This shows the fight that’s ahead for us in solar as well, imagine if someone did a test on how much energy you can offset on a house and used 10% efficient modules instead of the market leading technology.
Job Postings. If you want to have your job openings posted on SolarWakeup, just email me the link to the actual job. I’ll be changing them every day or so. If you want to have it stay on the newsletter you can sponsor that now, email me to inquire.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 21st, 2019
A SolarWakeup Favor. If you enjoy getting this newsletter and the discussion we engage in every day, I would greatly appreciate it if you posted why you read SolarWakeup on LinkedIn or Twitter to help get the word out. We’re already the most read newsletter in solar but the bigger it gets the better the network effect moves forward. You can tag either @yannbrandt or @solarwakeup on either platform! Thanks in advance for your help.
Friday Fast Reads. New York is passing a giant climate bill that leads to net zero and carbon free goals in 2040 and 2050 requiring double digit GW of solar to be built in the near future. Read more to get the details.
Runaway Senators. Oregon State Senators are showing the backbone it takes to stand up for your vote by running away. The Senate republicans have left the Capitol and the State to stop a quorum from taking place for a cap and trade vote.
Nuclear PPAs. A federal bill has been filed that would require the Government to enter into a 40 year PPA with new nuclear. If legislators don’t want to give us an ITC extension, a 40 year PPA adjusted for irradiance sounds great too.
Interesting Tidbits. Texas solar is growing like crazy and my 2014 business idea of going long in Texas seems correct. Look for more utilities to want to get into the distributed energy storage systems across the Country. It creates demand and supply response capabilities.
A New Home Solar Survey. Vivint Solar engaged a survey to see where the approval ratings are for new home solar mandates. Overall the approval was 70 percent across America and even respondents over 65 years old were in favor by 61% with younger respondents (25-34) were 74% in favor.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 20th, 2019
Solar Needs Your Action. While the solar market is growing in residential and utility scale segments, the House of Representatives committee left ITC extension and storage addition out of the tax extenders bill pushing forward a ‘skinny’ bill instead. Senators are responding with a strong letter advocating for support, read that letter here. You need to get on the phone with your Congressional representative and let them know that you and your company want an ITC extension. If you need the contact info, you can type in your zip code here.
More US Manufacturing. Not a lot of manufacturing happens in the US but when the market grows and you sell hundreds of different products with a 1-week lead time, you find value in doing it here. At Quick Mount we’re taking advantage of the growing market and investing in doubling our capacity with a second shift. This is not because of the tariffs but in spite of them, because tariffs slow the overall market down but we believe in the future growth of our partners and trust that our technology is what the market wants. Hope you share some enthusiasm in the great news we are highlighting today!
Finish The Trade War. As Trump heads to Japan for G20 meetings, the big spotlight will be not the US-China trade talks. US business leaders are hoping for a resolution so we can go back to growing the economy across the segments that deliver goods to consumers. The solar market grows despite the headwinds on aluminum, steel and other tariffs in addition to the module level soft costs added without value to the market.
Yield Mania Is Back Down. The ten year treasury yields are back down under 2%, go refinance your portfolios now!
Dirty Power Plan. The administration is out with the change to the clean power plan, Obama’s marquee plan to lower carbon emissions. Environmental NGOs are touting it the dirty power plan as it seeks to bring back coal, which one author points out is having financing troubles since the future of coal is bleak.
Battle Of The Solar Bands. CALSSA is currently offering an EARLY BIRD SPECIAL DISCOUNT on tickets. Get your ticket before June 21 and pay only $60 per ticket and even less per ticket on ticket bundles! One of the most important ways you can support YOUR industry is to get tickets to this special event! Visit CALSSA’s website to learn more and get your tickets today! Each ticket includes two free drinks! (button or text links to: http://bit.ly/ET-SBOB-
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 19th, 2019
Crane Chimes In On DNC. Check out the David Crane op-ed about the DNC decision to not host a climate debate.
The Energy Fair. Meet me next week in Custer, Wisconsin for the famous Energy Fair as I host a special edition of SolarWakeup Live! sponsored by Panasonic with leaders in Wisconsin’s solar market. This is my first time to this event and would love to meet many of you! More info on the event here
Battle Of The Solar Bands. CALSSA is currently offering an EARLY BIRD SPECIAL DISCOUNT on tickets. Get your ticket before June 21 and pay only $60 per ticket and even less per ticket on ticket bundles! One of the most important ways you can support YOUR industry is to get tickets to this special event! Visit CALSSA’s website to learn more and get your tickets today! Each ticket includes two free drinks! (button or text links to: http://bit.ly/ET-SBOB-
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 18th, 2019
Q1 Solar Market Grows. In the first three months of the year, the U.S. installed 2.7 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV), making it the most solar ever installed in the first quarter of a year. The residential market experienced annual growth as well. According to the report, the U.S. saw 603 megawatts of residential solar installations during the first quarter, up 6 percent annually. In fact, the report notes that 29 percent of residential capacity in Q1 2019 came from markets outside the top 10 solar states by capacity, the highest share for emerging markets in industry history. Source: SEIA
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 17th, 2019
The Energy Fair. Meet me next week in Custer, Wisconsin for the famous Energy Fair as I host a special edition of SolarWakeup Live! sponsored by Panasonic with leaders in Wisconsin’s solar market. This is my first time to this event and would love to meet many of you! More info on the event here
EVs And Stationary Storage. The Tesla business model is one that Rivian likes and is emulating. Not just making electric cars, and I hope Rivian comes out with the EV SUV because it looks pretty awesome, but stationary power micrograms as well. Rivian is looking to create a market for their second life batteries, which sounds good in theory but given where I see battery costs, that will likely be a foolish idea in 5-10 years.
Hacking The Grid. Power outages scare me, every time I am affected by one I realize how dependent I am on electricity. I’m close to the PG&E outage zones and worry about the shutdowns much as I worried about outages post hurricanes in Florida. Worse than both of those situations is a prolonged attack by hackers on the electric grid and potentially power plants.
GE Ventures For Sale. The venture group from General Electric is looking for an investor to buy the portfolio from the corporate. Some of the names you’d know are Stem, Sonnen (exited), AMS, FlexGen Power Systems and others.
Oh PTC, Stay With Me. PTC and ITC are inherently different but if the wind industry has loud voices asking for the PTC to go away, why don’t they simply choose to not use it? Given where wind is being installed, see below, wouldn’t the PTC going away eliminate some of the other markets from growing?
Wind’s Political Power. Wind is being installed in areas that look like a pipeline proposal, right through the middle of the Country. It’s helping farmers, ranchers, landowners and rural America more than any other part of the Country. Looking at the map and the members of Congress that represent the areas shows how big the potential political power is in the wind sector.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 14th, 2019
The Energy Fair. Meet me next week in Custer, Wisconsin for the famous Energy Fair as I host a special edition of SolarWakeup Live! sponsored by Panasonic with leaders in Wisconsin’s solar market. This is my first time to this event and would love to meet many of you! More info on the event here
Solar Investor In Congress. Dan McCready is getting a second shot to win the race for congress and he’s being accused of shipping jobs overseas since the solar companies bought Chinese solar panels. That’s a stupid argument. I hope he wins.
Big Jobs. There are many renewable jobs in the US but globally that numbers gets real big real quick.
Green New Deal. We can all agree on the high level goals, more clean energy, less pollution, more jobs and access to all. How do we get there? That’s a question in detail that we need to keep figuring out.
Smart People Talking. Two of the more interesting and smart people in energy talk on the ILSR podcast. Give it a listen.
Have a great weekend and let me know your feedback on the job board.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 13th, 2019
The Energy Fair. Meet me next week in Custer, Wisconsin for the famous Energy Fair as I host a special edition of SolarWakeup Live! with leaders in Wisconsin’s solar market. This is my first time to this event and would love to meet many of you! More info on the event here
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 12th, 2019
Going Public. Reuters has the news that the solar loan and financing provider, Sunnova, is planning to go public. Over the years, Sunnova has built an impressive dealer network across the Country. The filing, likely still confidential at this point, is the first step in the process but as a financing provider, the path could be primed for success. With a growing market, Sunnova is poised to succeed in this process.
Respect The Roof. The solar industry has to figure out a plan to combat bad installers that are lying and cheating homeowners across the Country. This happens in most sectors but solar is under a microscope and some States have enacted consumer rights processes. The problem is that much of that is new and not being followed by the bad actors. The same is true for installers that are not using code compliant products and installation methods. Most of the focus is on the lending rules but not on creating a system that will work for 25-30 years, so we have to do more to get good solar on roofs across the Country.
Retailers Fight For Solar Access. Retailers have long fought for their own secure access to solar contracts. This Bloomberg story is about Target in Virginia but trade groups have been fighting this battle ever since I’ve been in solar.
Climate In Iowa? With terrible flooding and farmers understanding the risk of climate change, the more traditional campaign run by Vice President Biden is bringing the issue up on the campaign. In head to head programming with Trump, the Biden campaign is clearly seeing polling and voter data that says this issue brings voters over to their campaign.
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Yann