This is your SolarWakeup for February 14th, 2017

Time for Corporations to lead. I’ve been a vocal advocate for the disaggregation of solar production and solar consumption. Community solar does a lot of that but always relies on the regulatory body to ensure the rules don’t change. Corporate offtakers through financial transactions like contracts for difference or energy hedges. Getting the markets to drive these segment is crucial to its longevity and investments, because companies making deals to make money is the best subsidy there is.
Digging deep on tax equity. Tax equity is the cheapest and most expensive money at the same time. It requires complicated structuring that takes advisors and cash from the sponsor. Without the ITC our industry would be suffering through a bad time right now so when I saw the announcement that SolarReserve was able to get $78million for a concentrating solar plant with molten salt storage, I was intrigued. Listen to my conversation with the financial advisor on the deal, CohnReznick, to hear about the complexities and how it got done.
20 Governors. Have sent a letter to the President urging to continue on a path for more solar and wind. One interesting mention is the value generated for land owners from rent for those power plants. Let’s watch this space and see where it goes.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 13th, 2017

Turn the LePage. There is a serious problem in Government when executives have a problem with not having a dictatorship. Study after study shows that net metering is the best policy when it comes to merging fair with simple. Most States would have to create a time of use structure that ends up more financially attractive to solar customers if they really looked at the value of solar. LePage calling for the resignations of the regulators is the least crazy thing the Governor has done but good grief it’s time for him to go.
Spectators sit on the sidelines. Arizona looks like a mess to me. Solar doesn’t lose much but ahead of crucial votes that kill markets, the policy teams were pitching and organizing hard until a year ago. Now there are nothing but crickets. No marches, no pickets and no news stories. Just bad decisions. I’m tired of hearing that solar needs to be a market player and negotiate common ground, when was the last time that the NRA gave up so easily or negotiated at all?
Tariffs don’t work. Sad to see people lose their jobs around the world at SolarWorld. Not sad to see Qatari backed Asbeck lose, over and over again.
Wonk out. How does NYC get its electricity? Worth a read

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Yann

EnergyWakeup – Episode 4 – Interview With Conor McKenna From CohnReznick Capital Markets

This is your SolarWakeup for February 10th, 2017

Going inside tax equity. In this EnergyWakeup episode we speak with Conor McKenna, Managing Director at CohnReznick Capital Market Securities. Conor advised a $78 million tax equity investment for the Crescent Dunes Solar Project by SolarReserve. The innovation here is that the Crescent Dunes solar project uses molten salt energy storage technology from the SolarReserve concentrating solar tower site. We couldn’t leave the interview without asking Conor about his thoughts on tax reform and how it could impact the markets.
The easiest way. When it comes to energy, not all things are created equal. Regulators are still failing to compare the power sources correctly, leaving out the usage of water or other societal costs. Also, the healthcare cost shouldered by taxpayers from the pollution of fossil fuel plants. That is why a flat carbon tax makes sense, it achieves what the market regulators are failing on. Pollution also doesn’t stop at State borders and doing it on a national or continental level can and should work.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 9th, 2017

This could work. Assuming you could get the executives on board (hardest part of any merger), bringing Sunpower and First Solar together would make a lot of sense. Both companies are rooted in manufacturing and have products that offer a strong value proposition. First Solar does really well in the utility scale segment with modules close or better than 72 cell poly panels. On the other hand Sunpower is leaving the utility scale and focusing on distributed, mostly residential. The companies already share 8point3, the publicly traded yieldco. With the public markets down on solar, now would be a great time for a buyout of all three public companies. First Solar has a solid balance sheet but is entering a difficult time as they skip the Series 5 and go straight to Series 6 panels. If a PE firm is interested in this idea, give me a call!
A 5 billion dollar profit for taxpayers? It didn’t do what it was supposed to do, lose money. Get rid of it, total loser. Sad!
Solar farms in Florida. The biggest disappointment in solar over the past 10 years has been the market in Florida. One of the largest users of energy, sunny (Sunshine State after all) and plenty of land. Good to see some of Sunedison’s legacy projects getting to the finish line.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 8th, 2017

Update. The site is going through some updates that is why there hasn’t been posts on the site itself but that is why you get the email with the links, no need to go to the site at all. Please remember that if you enjoy this FREE service, pass it on to your friends and colleagues and tell them to subscribe.
Does the White House care? I think that SEIA with about 1,000 solar supporters should go to the lawn of the White House. The White House may not care about solar according to the America Has a Stupid Energy Policy so it is up to us to make the job growth political. The Koch’s are doing a great job politicizing 400 coal mining jobs when States like Florida added 1,700 solar jobs last year. We have to bring the message to the White House and the national media will cover it. The twice as many as coal, more than other fossil combined messages just don’t work.
Take it a step further. If you really want to make an impact and we should, then we should work with like-minded people. Your suppliers, lawyers, bankers, etc. do you know where they stand? Are they okay with the approach this administration is taking regarding solar? You get to choose the people you work with and if they aren’t looking out for your best interests, maybe you should go elsewhere. Best way to do that is look at their personal twitter accounts, tough to hide your views on that platform.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 7th, 2017

Jobs matter. Spare me the, Mr. President look at the jobs in the solar industry article, because money matters to the now 260,000 solar professionals. Solar Foundation’s National Solar Job Census is out this morning with staggering growth numbers. 44 out of 50 States had solar job growth and the industry grew over 25% once again. The best part is that over half of the jobs are installation jobs, these are hyperlocal and impact the economies that understand that solar cannot be outsourced and quality matters. This isn’t a race to the bottom where it counts and local officials should take notice. Take a look at the report highlights by visiting SolarJobsCensus.org.
Terminating the EPA. Imagine spending years in the Florida legislature riding your dad’s coattails. In Tallahassee, it gets decided pretty quickly if you make it to leadership and if you don’t and let’s just say Congressman Gaetz wasn’t picked first on the playground. He has a history of saying things to make headlines, once trying to accelerate death penalty implementation to hurry the meeting with god. As a freshman in DC, what better way to make waves with the Koch Brothers and be invited to lunch with Scott Pruitt than proposing a stupid bill. This is a PR effort, it’s working but it will not go anywhere.
The ‘e’ word? David Crane comes out wondering about the ‘e’ word. An oil embargo to be exact. What if? What if the response to the blunt speak from the oval office is to decrease the amount of oil being supplied to the US? What impact would it have? 40 years after the Carter embargo, we are in a different era. We produce A LOT of domestic fuel, our natural gas output is exponentially higher than the 70s and our electric grid has removed essentially all oil from the grid. Consumers would be I think, prices would ratchet up rather badly hurting the discretionary spending that fuels our economy.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 6th, 2017

Solar sells. Super Bowl 51 was inside NRG Stadium and last I checked there are few companies with as much coal and natural gas power plant in their portfolio. As the company was gearing up their PR for their big day, it was the solar power deal with the stadium that was the highlight. In a regional ad, Florida Power & Light had a commercial implying the need for natural gas baseload while showing their solar farms. Maybe companies are trying to tap into the 80% approval ratings enjoyed by solar.

This is your SolarWakeup for February 4th, 2017

Solar sells. Super Bowl 51 was inside NRG Stadium and last I checked there are few companies with as much coal and natural gas power plant in their portfolio. As the company was gearing up their PR for their big day, it was the solar power deal with the stadium that was the highlight. In a regional ad, Florida Power & Light had a commercial implying the need for natural gas baseload while showing their solar farms. Maybe companies are trying to tap into the 80% approval ratings enjoyed by solar.

Let’s Get Real. I’m a pretty positive guy but I also get rather annoyed at companies that make everything sound easy and great. Smoothing over the difficulties of this market is silly, nobody is buying it. This is especially true with storage and the new executives of Sonnen should be more careful with their PR. After a rather loud exit from the former US CEO as he went to Mercedes, I would expect management to be a bit more subdued. Storage is hard, let’s not sugar coat things. Same goes for solar companies, if margins are terrible, say so. Investors aren’t buying your talking points anyways as you share your books with them during a raise. The media is complicit in this. Bankers inside capital processes always leak and tell us the real story but we often act as cheerleaders and don’t want to write something that would be detrimental to our markets.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 2nd, 2017

The links. It is not lost on me that I promised something yesterday that I failed to deliver on. We are working on it again today, some process adjustments are in the works. If the links below are in blue, then you can bypass the website.
Make those cuts. Enphase announced yesterday that it would reduce staff by 75 positions or about 19%, mostly in the California HQ. I always empathize with those that are laid off. On the other hand the moves typically save the remaining jobs as the company drives its way to profitability. One point to note when I read the filing was that Enphase (after raising $10mm) engaged McKinsey to consult on the moves. Not exactly the most prudent use of money in that regard.
Charm City Politics. Maryland is trying to override the veto from Governor Hogan on the expansion of the RPS. It’s odd that Maryland has a republican Governor but the State has a pretty diverse population with the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland. I’d love to see more thoughtful talking points from Republican politicians on these things. Blah blah blah tax increases, blah blah blah consumers just doesn’t do it for me. How about: “Maryland has complicated electric infrastructure served by PJM on the Eastern Shore with aging infrastructure and grid congestion that would be better served by working with local IPPs; while the rest of the State has regulated investor owned utilities and municipal power agencies. My plan would be to work with the utilities to replace (read ratebase) aging, dirty power plants with cleaner power including the use of central and distributed renewable energy that give consumers more choice on their energy supply and costs.” No need to thank me Governor Hogan!
Out of the ‘woods’. NRG has gotten the Ivanpah power station up to minimum production levels. The entity operating the system was in forbearance for nearly a year but now the approximate 65 full time on site technicians have operated themselves into the sunlight. I guess haters will have to start writing about birds again…

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Yann