This is your SolarWakeup for November 1st, 2018

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Happy Halloween. Like solar, it is clear that snickers and twix are the candy of choice for kids. Anyone that passes out something else loves fossil fuels. Regardless, a long evening of trick or treating means that there is no column today. More to come tomorrow. In the meantime, please support the gracious sponsors of SolarWakeup Live! by learning more about them on the links by clicking on their logos. 

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Have a great day!
Yann

Washington Is About To Run Out Of Solar Incentives (So Snap Them Up Quick)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Once the money is gone, it really is gone. That’s the news out of Washington state care of the Tri-City Herald, where an article warns potential solar consumers that they must get their applications in now if they want the full solar incentives available to them. As the article notes: Some home or business owners in Richland planning to install solar panels likely are facing a drop in rates in the city program that buys electricity from small solar systems. And now a state tax incentive program is expected to run out of money soon, … Read More →

God Bless(ed) Solar Energy: Catholic Diocese Goes All In In New York

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent And the Lord said let there be solar, and it was good. OK, that’s not really how the quotation from the book of Genesis goes, but under an agreement between the Archdiocese of New York and Con Edison Solutions, five parishes in the sprawling Catholic diocese will soon be running (at least partially) off energy they harvest from the sun. The Energy Department of the Archdiocese of New York along with five parishes joined Con Edison Solutions, one of America’s leading energy services companies, and students from Blessed Sacrament School to launch a renewable energy … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for October 31st, 2018

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Storage Study. Just a few days before our keynote interview with the NJ BPU President at SolarWakeup Live! the BPU has awarded Rutgers the grant to study energy storage and how it should be implemented. The $300k grant will allow the BPU to implement the clean energy rules around energy storage. The BPU has also released information about SRECs for projects before the new plan is put in place. 
Storage Implementation. Just north of NJ and PJM, ISO-NE is working on its own implementation of energy storage. In addition to the ISO-NE, storage will be prevalent in the market within MA through SMART. All this to say that the storage integration future is well underway. Count 2020/2021 as the key breakout years while the markets work through development and capital education in the next year. 
Retail Energy Storage. An interesting twist to buying clean energy through retail choice programs. CleanChoice, the clean energy retail energy provider, is working with homeowners to have them add energy storage in the home for backup purposes. The interesting marketing angle is that this could lengthen the relationship between the homeowner and the retail company, creating a stickiness in the home between the two similar to cable or alarm providers.

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Have a great day!
Yann

Rutgers Will Research New Jersey Energy Storage Path

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent With just six days left until SolarWakeup Live! New Jersey, the topics are set – but attendees might be forgiven if they have a few off-topic questions that they might decide need to be addressed. Take, for example, the announcement by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities that Rutgers University will be studying the state’s energy-storage needs as the regulatory board prepares to shepherd through Governor Phil Murphy’s aggressive plans to have 2 GW of energy storage by 2030. The contract with Rutgers, announced yesterday and covered by the Press of Atlantic City, will … Read More →

Partnership Allows Marylanders To Marry Clean Energy And Batteries

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Maryland residents will soon have the opportunity to marry clean energy and battery storage, thanks to a partnership between CleanChoice Energy and Swell Energy. As power outages become more prevalent as violent, climate-change induced storms rock the U.S. mainland, home battery storage is increasingly becoming a necessity, not a luxury. Thanks to CleanChoice and Swell, Marylanders can install home energy backup and perhaps qualify a state tax credit of up to $5,000.* Last year, more than 36.7 million people – including 88,000 Marylanders – were affected by 3,526 reported power outages across the country. [wds … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for October 30th, 2018

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All About The Lease. Duke is asking the North Carolina commission to approve the deregulated services group to provide a lease for onsite solar projects. This is the first entity that I have heard of to provide onsite leases and the details stay clear of the benefit to the business owner. From a regulatory perspective this is a departure of the standard protocol to separate regulated and deregulate entities. It is not common practice to allow both side of the house to compete in the same market geography. 

What’s Next? It is becoming a full time job for many reporters to cover Elon Musk and his adventures to save humanity on Earth and beyond. I do find some of the other musings by Musk to be of interest, especially as he begins the thought process beyond vehicle ownership. This is an interesting logic to have to encounter as the CEO of an auto OEM but reality given the future of autonomous vehicle infrastructure. One utility exec once gave me his viewpoint that the utilities would in fact be the taxi company of the future, consumers paying for it with the same account they paid their utility bill with. 

Underestimating Municipalities. This could be the story all about how the municipalities caused the IOU business model to turn upside down. In Kentucky, a place where utilities have always gotten along with customers until of course the free market gave options that made them look at a different option. It’s curious that if IOUs get too greedy and stay anti-solar that Cities across the Country may lead the charge for change. 

DG Value Analysis. This may be the first, correct me if I’m wrong, analysis of distributed energy storage projects. In conjunction with net metering (I know it may be duplicative) this could result in a great benefit to the grid by the distributed solar plus storage assets. 

Overflow Room Opened. We’ve reached the original capacity of 150 seats for the SolarWakeup Live! event next week but we’re opening the extra seating section for another 30 seats. Get yours now to join us next week. 

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Have a great day!
Yann

It’s All About The Jobs: More Funds Flow To Solar Workforce Development

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent How do you know the solar industry is now a serious player in the economy of the United States? More money is flowing from the government into research on how to develop the workforce that is necessary to fill the jobs it’s creating. Following news that The Solar Foundation received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to foster training for veterans (among others) comes news that the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has received a grant from the office for $6 million – three times as … Read More →

Duke Energy Unveils Commercial Solar Leasing In Carolinas

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In an effort to bring 1 MW of commercial solar development to the Carolinas, Duke Energy has unveiled a solar leasing program to serve those consumers. Their application to be a solar lessor needs to be approved by the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission (NCPUC). Duke Energy Clean Energy Resources (DECER), a non-regulated affiliate of the company, will build, own and operate on-site solar facilities that will allow customers to access renewable energy without a large upfront investment. [wds id=”3″] “Customers want more solar power for their operations, but the large upfront investment can be … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for October 29th, 2018

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Sununu Sticks To Talking Points. A new metering bill in New Hampshire passed the legislature and has been vetoed by the Governor. Sununu gave his best to argue cost shift as the main reason but we know where most of this comes from. One of the useful arguments in other States has come right from the customers, instead of solar professionals. This could be a useful tactic to show that solar means more textbooks for kids paid for with the energy savings. 
Hmmm, GM Goes All In On EVs? General Motors proposed a change to the emissions targets to the Trump administration. Instead of focusing on higher efficiency vehicles, GM wants a zero emissions target which puts 7 million EVs on the road by 2030. This appears to be a positive shift towards EVs but also slows the ICE fuel standards by focusing the plan on EVs. The target of 7million by 2030 is rather small in my opinion and it would be best to let the market drive the adoption of EVs instead of the standard. 
Solar Makes News, Not Headlines. We had the Musk versus Buffett stories when Nevada was debating net metering and now we have Adelson versus Buffett. The story centers around the energy choice ballot initiative which Adelson wants to see passed. Casinos, which Adelson owns, want to buy their own energy including really cheap desert solar and storage instead of having to buy electricity from NV Energy which Buffett owns. Consumer choice is the argument here. I doubt Buffett is very much involved in the argument except for the push to his CEOs to generate more free cash flow but he’s on the wrong side on this one. 
Future of CCAs. By 2030, I expect that most consumers have retail energy choice and an IOU providing wire services. This is the natural progression from the IOU system we have today and surely looks like CCAs are the way to handle that in areas that IOUs have franchise agreements. At some point the market will likely have to make this a bit clearer but in the meantime, California is a test case for what happens when there is mass adoption of CCAs. 
Catch Up NY Times. Sunrun versus Tesla/SolarCity, centered around Tesla leaving the top spot is a year too old of a story but just in time for the NYT I guess. Just last week I wrote about the surprising data from the Tesla earnings call and how they appear to make a run at the top spot now instead of coming in shy of Sunrun. Still good for solar to make it to the national pages of the NYT. 
One Week Out. Join us next Tuesday in Jersey City for SolarWakeup Live! including a great happy hour right after the event. 

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Have a great day!
Yann