Something About Babies And Bath Water: Big Oil Could Help The Renewable Transition If We Let Them (So Says The Fool)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent According to Maxx Chatsko at The Motley Fool, it may not pay for renewable energy advocates to fit Big Oil for the Snidely Whiplash top hat and cape. It seems they are investing billions of dollars into renewable energy research that could help make a 100% renewable future possible – but only if they’re allowed to continue their work. The argument is all about scale. While solar is spreading like wildfire of its own accord, building an infrastructure like the one Big Oil already has in place would take decades (if not centuries). Plus, solar … Read More →

EV Charging Earns Nearly $1 Billion In Investments In California, New York

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent There just might be something to this electric vehicle (EV) revolution after all – at least New York and California seem to think so. Greenbiz is reporting that between the two states, nearly $1 billion will be spent adding EV-charging stations to the nation’s infrastructure. In California, more than $750 million of public money is being invested in three of the state’s largest utilities, while in New York $250 million is being allocated to the New York Power Authority (NYPA). As the invaluable Katie Fehrenbacher notes in her article, the decision to invest with utilities … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for June 5th, 2018

Strategic Reduction In China’s Solar Market? China’s solar market is in for a shocking halt after an announcement by the governing body last week. Most of the publicly traded solar companies had a bad day yesterday after being downgraded on the change in subsidy policies that kept that capacity flowing at a massive pace. Let’s see how that affects the market pricing in the US, the oversupply could create competition that will center around pricing for the domestic projects. BUT I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t an impact that tries to stop the oversupply from coming this way given the 201 and AD/CVD tariffs are all percentage based charges.
Big EV Infra. I was amiss in speaking about this when it happened over the weekend but multiple regulatory bodies in CA and NY approved over $1billion in EV charging infrastructure to be built by the utilities. This is a massive upside for utilities that not only get to rate base the infrastructure, something I support, but also benefit from the increased load this will create from the EV adoption curve that this will cause since consumers will no longer worry about range. The conversation with regulators should be that any increased demand should be supplied with solar and storage and not rate based power generation.
Will The Consumers See This? The Trump coal and nuclear bailouts are going to cost money but the cost isn’t bourne by taxpayers but it may cause a two stage impact. The first level is similar to steel and aluminum tariffs with manufacturers and will affect the retail energy companies. Some may not have a way to pass the additional cost to the consumers while they are under contract and consumers that are about to renew will be in for a shocking price increase. Not only will consumers pay the actual increase but there will be a regulatory risk premium that otherwise would not have been there in a rational market. The price of the unknown is sometimes bigger than the actual price increase especially when a risk committee has to think about crazy possibilities.
Settling In North Carolina. Environmental and solar groups settled with Duke on their grid modernization efforts which were originally slated for greater than $7billion and settled at $2.5billion with some pro renewables policies attached. This comes in parallel with some leading indicators that Duke may be trying to stop energy storage to be added to solar projects, more on that to come.
Climate Change Financing Risk. Do you look at the climate change risk of a property that you are looking to fund a deal on? How do you do it and have you lost a deal because of it?

News

Have a great day!
Yann

Chinese Solar Market Suffers Severe Setback As Government Slashes Subsidies, Projects

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent The South China Morning Post reports a Chinese solar market in freefall after the government decided it would no longer fund new solar farms and slashed subsidies to solar electricity users by almost 10%. According to the paper, the government says the move is designed to wean the Chinese solar market off of government subsidies and put it on a more “sustainable path.” The Post wrote: A joint statement put out on Friday by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance and National Energy Administration said, “The measures are aimed at “promoting the … Read More →

Town of Bethel and Ameresco Celebrate Completion of Solar Farm on Capped Landfill

Wisconsin Utilities Agree To Add 300 MW Of Solar To Portfolios

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Get ready for 300 MW of solar projects coming your way, Badger State. Two of the state’s utilities – Madison Gas and Electric (MGE) and WEC Energy Group (WEC), through its Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) – will be partners in two projects in the state. The projects will be developed Invenergy and NextEra Energy Resources, according to applications filed with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) at a cost of approximately $390 million. If approved by the end of 2018, construction of both projects is expected to begin by spring 2019, with both plants … Read More →

Iron Mountain Joins RE100 and Commits to Setting Science Based Targets for Carbon Reductions

Iron Mountain® Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the global leader in storage and information management services, today announced two important environmental commitments that significantly advance the company’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and increase its usage of renewable energy around the world. Firstly, Iron Mountain is joining the RE100 initiative, a collaborative, global platform developed by The Climate Group, an independent, not-for-profit organization working internationally with government and business leaders to advance smart policies and technologies to cut global emissions and accelerate a low carbon economy. Iron Mountain joins more than 130 multinational corporations in committing to a shift to using … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for June 4th, 2018

Solar In Illinois. The Illinois Power Agency is looking to finalize the adjustable block program which will be key to the distributed and community solar markets in the midwest’s solar market. SolarWakeup Live will start the full day looking into the market with the director of the IPA, which on June 21st will likely have the rules finalized, so that you can get on the ground and moving forward. We have a few more sponsor spots for the event (email me) and tickets are available at solarwakeuplive.com.
Coal Collusion. Looks like coal magnate, Bob Murray, got what he wanted from Trump on the 1-year anniversary of announcing the departure of the Paris agreement. The best response going around about this announcement is from the PJM twitter account. To date, PJM has not been notified by governing agencies to prop up coal plants yet but expect that to happen. The way for the government to really prop up these plants without picking winners would also cause the value of solar generation to increase which then causes the demise of coal to quicken. So here we are, throwing wind to the free market, rules be damned.
Arizona Plea Deals Rejected. This is your reminder that the original sin in fighting solar net metering is still embroiled in a federal grand jury investigation. Now there’s news that a former regulator and lobbyist are rejecting plea deals in the case. When I read this, I can’t help but to think of the many ex parte communications happening every day across the Country and we may be better off when the power isn’t concentrated to the monopolies anymore. Just a thought.
Thoughts On NV Energy. The gigawatt of solar represents the value of solar in high irradiance areas, like Nevada. Also, I’d be amazed if storage isn’t closer to 2GWh than the 400MWh outlined in the proposal. Let’s revisit this in a few years.
Slowing Chinese Solar. New rules from the Chinese government have caused a few people off guard. This is perhaps a sign of the strength of the global markets. Imagine what else would be possible with the trade wars.
Quality Of Resi Solar. Australia has been growing distributed solar in a big way and a lot of it has to do with the ease of installing solar on homes. Little delay between selling and installation means consumers are happy. With the ability to review the installs later on, gives the consumer advocate a way to make sure installers are doing a good job and there is some work to do. In the US, we need to do more to get closer to an instant solar process. We also need to do more in having the solar industry regulated by solar experts. We will be discussing this in much greater detail this summer but ponder how the solar industry could ensure that consumers are getting great solar.

News

Have a great day!
Yann

UPDATE: Trump Throws Free Market Principles Out Window On Behalf Of Coal, Nuke Plants

This article has been updated to reflect that President Trump has in fact given the order rather than just considering it. By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Well, that’s not very free market of him. In a move that made George Gilder do a spit take, President Donald J. Trump has ordered the Energy Department to instruct grid operators to purchase electricity from failing coal and nuclear plants in an effort to keep such faltering plants alive and well, according to the Associated Press. [wds id=”3″] Earlier today, Bloomberg indicated such a move might be imminent, citing a memo it reviewed … Read More →

PPL Corporation Acquires Safari Energy