This is your SolarWakeup for May 23rd, 2018

Strand My Assets, Not My Money. RMI is out with a report that outlines the long term investment thesis for new natural gas plants. Hint: it’s not good. The report finds that like many coal plants today, gas plants don’t provide the best financial return in the future and could find themselves pushed aside for financial reasons. This isn’t just a problem for private investors, consumers that finance these plants, guarantee their financial return, are the quasi investors within regulated monopoly areas. If this sounds familiar just look at the nuclear bailouts and requested coal bailouts in the news today.
Show Me The Wires. SEIA’s report on grid modernization makes the point that RMI found above. The future of energy will value the grid of the future. This means that more distributed generation will require a grid with less wires. Anything that ends up pushing energy from a central power plant to the loads will have a value that is significantly diminished. That future may be okay for solar and wind farms that have no exposure to fuel costs and volatility but it becomes harder for more traditional fuel. Distributed generation needs to be a central part of everything we do as a solar industry and that benefits even those that are not focused on DG.
Talk To Michael. There is a statement that comes up in some conversations with politicians. It doesn’t have to be said often because lobbyists get the process for political leaders very quickly. After a pitch on an issue with some politicians, emphasis on some, the elected will say something like, “that’s very interesting, I’d like to learn more, please talk to XYZ.” In Trump’s universe, it may have been “Talk to Michael.” At the very least, this is what one nuclear power plant was thinking and maybe solar should have been told to TTM. Of course I kid, mostly, I think.
Long Term Vision, Short Term Problems. 3 months go by very quickly and changing the energy market in 3 months increments is basically impossible. If access to capital is required in order to make that change work, then having to focus on the quarterly earnings makes that difficult. So how do we merge the desire for transparency in public companies with the hope to allow companies to change the norms.
Windy City, Sunny Market. Get your ticket for SolarWakeup Live! Chicago. Part of the event will be personal matchmaking between those that have projects or pipeline with those that have capital. The one day event you will not want to miss. solarwakeuplive.com

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Have a great day!
Yann

The Tariffs Are Taking A Devastating Toll

By Tony Clifford, CDO of Standard Solar As a general rule, it doesn’t hurt to be right—but when it comes to the devastating effects the Section 201 solar tariffs are having on the industry, I wish I’d been wrong. Last year, two foreign-owned companies held the U.S. solar industry hostage to their own selfish needs, and 9,800 people lost their jobs in 2017 alone. And I have to be blunt: 2018 has not gotten off to any better start. I’ve heard some so-called industry “experts” suggest the tariffs are having the desired effect, i.e. that solar manufacturing jobs are coming … Read More →

We’ve Got No Wires To Hold Us Down: SEIA Completes Grid Modernization Series

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In the future, there will be no wires to hold down the transmission of electricity – at least that’s what the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) believes is part of the future of grid modernization, according to a white paper it released last week. The paper , DER and the Non-Wires Solutions Opportunity, examined how utilities are investing in distributed electricity production instead of the traditional centralized model that has dominated grid development since the 19th century. [wds id=”3″] “Today, customers are increasingly seeking more control of their own energy, and with the rapidly falling … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for May 22nd, 2018

Q2 Sentiment Survey. The second quarter sentiment survey is up and running. Please take 30 seconds and answer these 5 questions and tell us how you feel. This is a survey for individuals so it doesn’t matter what role you play in solar. We will release the results at SolarWakeup Live! Chicago on June 21st, you should have your ticket already!
IOUs Getting Bigger. NextEra, the parent company of Florida Power & Light, is buying the Florida subsidiary of Southern Company, Gulf Power. Moreover it is acquiring several power plants that serve other Florida entities like Orlando and FMPA, which previously signed a solar PPA with NextEra.
Innovating The Midwest Energy. AEE is out with a memo to the gubernatorial candidates in Ohio. It outlines 5 points to consider in growing the advanced energy economy in Ohio, which just a few years ago had the potential of becoming a major solar market. It has solar success in the Youngstown area with the manufacturing base of First Solar and its series 6 rollout.
CA Solar Homes, Explained. When CA put in place a solar mandate on all new homes, the details are more nuanced than solar on every home in the State. I wasn’t planning on breaking it down, mostly because reading regulatory documents doesn’t fit into my calendar but I bring you the wonderful reporting from Julia Pyper. The details are detailed and I assure you, don’t start reading the breakdown without sufficient time. I never said it would be short!
Electrify Everything. Keyless entry. Air conditioned seats (I live in Florida). Regenerative braking. Adaptive cruise control. These are some of the features I want in my cars. They simply make the car a better driving experience and make our roads safer. Some of these features are part of why electric vehicles make for better modes of transportation and why the transition will speed up. When a city buys a new fleet of buses, why would they buy ICE? I don’t see it lasting much longer before all new fleet purchases are electric.
Helping AHJs. I wish that there was a way to speak to all AHJs overseeing solar at the same time. First, I’d like to make sure they are paying attention to the small details that make sure solar is installed properly without causing roof leaks or affecting the roof in a bad way. In the meantime we have IREC continuing the important work of teaching solar to AHJs.

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Have a great day!
Yann

Ohio AEE Launches Advanced Energy Roadmap To Grow Economy, Jobs

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Ohio Advanced Energy Economy (Ohio AEE), a business coalition that supports a clean energy future in the state, unveiled its five point plan to move the state closer to having a clean-energy-based economy. Ohio AEE says its plans outline market-based policy considerations that would create thousands of jobs and bring billions of investment dollars into the state. [wds id=”3″] “Advanced energy supports more than 105,000 jobs in Ohio, but policy uncertainty over the last six years has artificially slowed the growth of this booming industry,” said Ray Fakhoury, legislative affairs director for Ohio Advanced Energy … Read More →

More Power To The Powerful: NextEra Buys Two More Florida Utilities For $6.5 Billion

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In a deal that gives the owner of Florida Power & Light even more influence on electrical policy in the Sunshine State, NextEra Energy has entered into agreements to purchase two more Florida utilities for nearly $6.5 billion. NextEra announced plans to purchase Gulf Power from Southeast utility giant Southern Company, as well as Florida City Gas. It will also purchase ownership interests in two natural gas plants currently owned by Southern. [wds id=”3″] The transactions will give the owner of Florida’s largest utility more incentive to push a natural gas – rather than a … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for May 21st, 2018

Q2 Sentiment Survey. The second quarter sentiment survey is up and running. Please take 30 seconds and answer these 5 questions and tell us how you feel. This is a survey for individuals so it doesn’t matter what role you play in solar. We will release the results at SolarWakeup Live! Chicago on June 21st, you should have your ticket already!
Residential Advisory Council. Last call for residential installers to join the SolarWakeup residential solar market advisory council. We’ve got a couple of dozen involved already and will be engaging this group to learn more about the most important segment of the solar industry. If you’re interested in being involved, which will be worth your time and insights, please send me an email.
The List Of 201 Impacts. Last week we changed the format of our original reporting. Our hopes is to shift into a format that is less about telling you how we feel about the news, which I will continue to do in this portion, but give you greater detail about the news that matter to the industry. In this report we went deeper into the impact of 201 for Cypress Creek, which gave us more detail about their project cancellations. We knew that any 201 tariff would result in job losses, and the most important job losses are the jobs not created. If you live in one of these 11 States, contact your Senator and tell him about the lost opportunity.
Not A Spectator Sport. Michigan is not the biggest solar market but it can be. As an aside, Michigan was on track to be the hub of solar manufacturing in the US thanks to the leadership of Governor Granholm. After a great attempt by Vote Solar and others to stop a natural gas plant in favor of more renewables, Tom Steyer also pushed a separate RPS initiative in the State. DTE announced late on Friday that they are increasing and pushing up their RPS goal to 50% by 2030, with a personal note to Steyer in the press release. While a victory, I wonder who may not have wanted the RPS ballot question on the ballot during a gubernatorial election?
Corporate Energy Executives. I like the idea of energy executives within corporations getting some spotlight in the boardroom. You already see this within big tech companies but how about the rest of the top corporations? When 70% of customers (according to Deloitte) want to know companies are doing more renewable energy, you’ve got to think that the CEO is looking around the room and wondering what the plan is. How do we elevate these executives? Anyone here do this for a living and want to explain the internal work you do to get projects done to the audience at SolarWakeup Live! Chicago? I would love to have you.
I Want This. In case you missed it, Meghan and Harry left for the post-nuptial celebration in an awesome 1968 Jaguar. The best part? It was converted to electric. Here its he official Kensington Palace video.

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Have a great day!
Yann

Trump Tweet Commends “Clean Coal” Even As DTE Energy Continues To Shut Down Coal Plants

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Three months after announcing it would completely eliminate coal from its portfolio, Detroit-based utility DTE Energy announced on Friday it, along with partner Consumers Energy, was accelerating plans to increase its clean-energy portfolio to reach a generation target of at least 50% by 2030. The utility’s announcement came on the same day President Donald J. Trump tweeted that the United States has 250 years of “clean coal” in its energy mix and touted the fact he ended the mythical “war on coal.” DTE Energy’s announcement is further proof that the era of coal is rapidly … Read More →

New Marketing E-Book Targets Clean Energy Companies

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Tigercomm, a marketing firm with numerous clients in clean energy, released an e-book titled How Clean Energy Companies Can Engage Customer Prospects Faster in an Attention-Scarce World, which it says is designed to help companies market themselves better. As clean energy becomes more commoditized, the e-book argues it’s more difficult for one company to stand out from every other company. And with a finite number of legitimate customers, that can be frustrating. “Across clean economy sectors, sales and marketing teams we talk to share a growing frustration: It’s gotten harder to get customer prospects to … Read More →

11 States To Feel Sting Of Cypress Creek Retrenchment

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Though North Carolina will bear the overwhelming brunt of Cypress Creek Renewables’ decision to cancel 1.5 GW of projects in the wake of the Trump Administration’s tariff imposition, it isn’t the only one. In all, 11 states will feel the sting of what company spokesman Jeff McKay called the “lost investment opportunity” that will result from its pullback. “We’re projecting that the tariff will cost into the billions of dollars in lost investments,” McKay told SolarWakeup. “It’s no secret that the solar industry’s record rate of growth will be harmed by the tariff. We aren’t … Read More →