This is your SolarWakeup for December 8th, 2016

Big Wakeup news coming soon. We’ve been working on a really important project given the fast moving, confusing and let’s just call it interesting political environment we are in. Stay tuned for more.
Thanks for the feedback! I hope we can do this more often, but you said it clearly that you enjoyed the summaries. I also understand the request to put the links for the stories directly in the email instead of having to come to the website. Obviously, the intent is to drive traffic to the site for metrics but that may no longer be the case. May consider doing a trial and having the article links right in the email.
It was a Trump directed headshake. Scott Pruitt will be the head of the EPA. The P used to stand for protection but will soon stand for pilfering. Scott Pruitt is the AG in Oklahoma and favorite attack dog on the EPA for the Koch Brothers. Ivanka stories, Gore meeting, those were all misdirection to this nonsense.
What does $250million buy? The Kochs may have been quiet during the Presidential election but they are far from quiet now. While the President Elect is Donald Trump, the transition is led by Governor Pence who has been close to the Kochs for years. Scott Pruitt and many more are direct contact of the Koch empire.
Out with the old. SunPower is making the cuts to ramp operational efficiency. The factory in the Philippines is one of the first factories the company opened and costly to operating. Cutting the factory will reduce capacity by 700MW and cut 2,500 jobs in the company, most in the Philippines.  It will cost the company about $350 million, about 30% of which will be cash.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 7th, 2016

How’s the new format? It’s been a few weeks since I added the summaries to the top. Are they helpful or do they get into the way of the articles that you want to read? What else would you like this publication to give you to make it even better? Reply to this email and let me know.
Solar likes a free market now. PV-Magazine has a good summary on a leaked memo on Trump’s energy policies written by former Koch lobbyist Thomas Pyle. One of the points speaks to getting rid of all energy subsidies so that the market can discover the true price. I’m all in on that, it was actually one of the best negotiating points during the ITC extension because the ITC is almost nothing compared to the rest of the energy sector. This is a fool’s errand by the way, oil and gas will never, ever let Congress get rid of their subsidies. EVER!
A windy Google search. Google announced yesterday that it reached 100% renewable energy in 2017, meaning it will get all of its electric needs from renewable sources. For Google that means over 2.6GW of power but it may be a bit unclear on how that power correlates to energy use and timing. This is almost all wind with some solar mixed in. Someone needs to get into Facebook and make them do a solar project.
The risky cost of inaction. Bloomberg, Steyer and Paulson have been running a project called the Risky Business Project. Outlining the economic risk to the US by unmitigated climate change, the analysis has transitioned from the cost of inaction to the benefits of action. Their point is that the action is now incredibly valuable for financial entities, one that is not lost to many pension funds across the globe or pretty much anyone except for the US Congress.
Mr. Trump, meet Elon Musk. During the debate, Donald Trump brought up Solyndra which means he has been briefed on the loan guarantee program. He would know that it is returning over $5billion in profits to the taxpayers and had a loan to Tesla repaid ahead of schedule. The story we know well, but the agreement on the domestic manufacturing issue is understated. Musk’s companies have created over 35,000 jobs and used State level economic development deals to do it, both a staple of Trump’s policies. We did have Elon Musk as the leading candidate for DOE Secretary in our brief last month.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 6th, 2016

Koch and Trump make up. It appears the lobbyist Mike McKenna has been replaced as the Energy Transition leader. Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, has taken over and the record on renewable energy is exactly as bad as you would expect. We can take some comfort (very little) that most energy policy is handled at the State level where Koch funded initiatives have not been as successful as hoped. Watch this space.
Buffett speaks, do the Koch Brothers listen? One of the most interesting dichotomies in energy is the partnership between monopolies and the free market champions. Buffett hopes that he will be able to deploy more capital into solar and wind, as his utilities have done quite a bit on the large scale side. Unlike IOUs like NextEra, the Berkshire utilities have not been big on DG, and we are only talking about deregulated sides of the house. What will the Koch influence on Federal policy have on the Buffett goals?
Is greenwashing really a bad thing? I’ve been giving the idea some thought that greenwashing is actually a good thing. Let’s say that a corporation does a green project. It then hires a marketing firm to promote the brand by talking about the project. Maybe the project could have been bigger or greener but my bet is that their competitors are watching. The competitor goes out and attempts to outgreen the other, then publicizes that and the whole circle gets bigger and wider. I say we should market any attempt by corporations to improve its clean energy initiatives.
Here is your faster horse. Henry Ford famously commented that his customers would have asked for faster horses if he asked them what they wanted when he developed the Model T. TBI is known as a front for centralized power, namely nuclear power. Their new report says that history shows DG is not the best way to solve energy poverty. Pardon my French but, no shit! Never in our history have we had access to this cost of solar power, cost of energy storage and small wind. Microgrids were a luxury for forward operating bases and mines in the middle of nowhere, now over 50 are planned for the continental US.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 5th, 2016

Only 1 lesson to learn. Don’t get me wrong, beating Amendment 1 in Florida was a great victory. Being against solar was an easy branding exercise and then people like Jimmy Buffett did more with their soapbox than any money could buy. The biggest lesson that needs to be learned and not repeated is that this was self inflicted by the solar industry. Amendment 1 was a defensive tactic to stop the announced solar PPA amendment. If the solar industry doesn’t learn this lesson, it may try to do another ballot amendment next year. Be very wary of such attempts.
China is taking the lead? While the President-Elect is going twazy (twitter crazy) over China, our inability to understand science has kept real climate change action at bay. In the meantime, China has turned 180 degrees and working on becoming the global leader on climate change.
The Asia solar market is? Every year we hear about the next markets. Middle East, Africa, Latin America! But lately it has been all about Asia outside of China. Japan is reaching the tail end and everyone has HUGE pipelines in Thailand, Philippines and neighboring Countries. Story today says that it may all be for not and is delayed if it happens at all.
My Christmas wish list. In case you were in the market to buy me a gift (since I send you SolarWakeup for free every day), the kind folks at CleanTechnica put together a nice list. The electric motorcycle seems particularly fun.

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Yann

These are the top 10 most read solar articles by your peers this week!

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 2nd, 2016

Good news from Trump world. When Hillary Clinton was asked to compliment PEOTUS, she went for the kids. Namely Ivanka, who has been the soft spoken leader of Trump’s children, is said to be making a move into some policy issues. While she is not moving to DC, insider sources say that climate change will be a key issue area for her family lobbying efforts. Let’s see who she hires as the Chief of Staff to see the impact she will be able to have.
Welcome to Florida! You all know that I reside here and while in my 10 years in solar have done little business here, am intrigued that the market could become more relevant. Vivint announced an entrance earlier this year but now SolarCity is opening a warehouse in Central Florida and hiring 300 jobs. Emergency meeting at the Governor’s Club tonight
More data for solar. We’ve covered this in the past and even wrote about the overlap of support that solar has from both sides of the aisle. A republican polling agency came out, yet again, that 75% of Trump voters support ‘action to accelerate deployment of clean energy.’ The question is, does the support from the GOP voters translate into legislation for policy from the GOP. We surely have not seen it at the State or Federal levels but optimism ahead.
Illinois Energy Bill goes to the Governor. A nuclear power bailout bill that was stacked with energy topics over several hundred pages. Most importantly the solar topics on changes to net metering and ‘insane’ demand charges were removed from the final version. The power of the grassroots continues to show in these policy debates.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 1st, 2016

The hardware race. It’s no secret that pricing for hardware keeps coming down. String and central inverters are now into the single digit pennies per watt which made entry into the market for microinverters that much harder. That pricing is coming down as well now and market share going up. Microinverters are coming in a timely situation because storage will play a much bigger role going forward, module level data will be helpful with time of use rate design and value is starting to outweigh price.
Freemium utility markets. After spending nearly $10 million on an attempt to stop solar in Florida, FPL (the largest monopoly in the State) is getting an additional $800 million to put into ratebase on which they will get a double digit guaranteed return. On the positive side, customer bills will be going up an average of 13% which makes solar more attractive.
Baseload gets support from above. New York went first, now Illinois, to keep nuclear power plants open. Many States before these gave special early cost recovery for nuclear power plants that were in development, and of course the biggest loan guarantees went to nuclear power plants. Utilities have found support from legislators to work together to make these plants more profitable, or at least break even. Someone should run a side by side analysis of solar+storage and nuclear incentives and let me know the results.
Off the grid but on the balance sheet. Not really but I am really happy to see the for profit social impact solar companies doing well. Companies like SunFunder have been able to put together the channels to deploy capital into hard to reach areas. Many times the challenge isn’t in the product or the need for it but the distribution network. Breaking through, at scale, drives economic growth much bigger than just solar.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 30th, 2016

Unqualified facilities? The avoided cost contracts under PURPA for qualifying facilities have been a large part of the solar pipeline. It was just in the past few years that solar could be financed with the low prices offered by these PURPA contracts, only because of the 15 year terms is it even possible. There are some open lawsuits by FLS Energy and Vote Solar in front of FERC on the recent attempts by utilities to shorten the contract terms. With a few open seats at FERC, you could expect some push by utilities to have the shorter contracts approved, putting at risk the pipeline.
Guaranteed loan guarantee office. One of solar’s favorite topics is the loan guarantee program because as an industry we are tied to it, even though it has been a minor part of the overall capital that has flowed to the sector. As much as Trump may dislike Solyndra, the program is a big winner for taxpayers and only legislation can close the office. Hats off to the former directors of the office that worked hard to make the program a success, both are quoted in the article.
Islands go to storage. We all saw the advanced microgrid project in American Samoa but now to a smaller project on a bigger island. Hawaii changed the net metering program to push homeowners to add storage in a self supply program. In a slow start, with no applications as of 6 months ago, hundreds have applied since. If this program gets fine-tuned, expect storage developers to get excited about the prospects to expand it to the continental US.
In god we trust, all others bring data. When it comes changing rate structure, the national association for regulators says that changes to rate structure must be deliberate and data driven. What experts have been saying for sometime, rate design may be an overstated necessity. Net metering has been an unbalanced but fair mechanism to ensure solar customers receive the benefit that they provide to other consumers. If you disagree, bring data.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 29th, 2016

10 reasons Europe loves storage. Or at least ways that storage will continue to thrive in Europe. With an already interconnected grid, storage can help balance and further increase the high levels of renewable energy on the EU grid. The markets lack net metering and deregulated suppliers in many cases causing pricing transparency issues. Here are the 10 requests the EU solar trade association has for market regulators.
Campaign coal falls flat. Only Santa is giving out coal this year because the market keeps digging a deeper mineshaft for coal. Michigan’s largest utility confirmed that they will be shutting down 8 out of 9 coal plants regardless of clean power plan implementation. We’ve been saying it for quite some time, the death of coal comes from natural gas and the fact that it is really dirty and bad for people.
Hating on TeslaCity. There has been some press that billionaires don’t like the press that fellow billionaire Elon Musk is getting. Apparently there is an anti-Elon Musk PR plan in the works that hopes to stop the innovator in his plan to bring sustainable power for all. Timing for buying SolarCity may not have been ideal but as the CEO of Sunrun said, Tesla got SolarCity for a great price. This isn’t a 2017 or 2018 plan anyways, just watch this video again.
How will Trump do it? There has been a lot of talk about what the Trump administration will want to do about energy buthow will it be done is the better question.  Congress still has a lot to do with implementation of rules even if it is in a repeal. A comment period and judicial oversight (read lawsuits) will also accompany those changes. There is a saying in DC, the most powerful person in Washington is the Senate Minority Leader so all eyes may be on Senator Schumer.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 28th, 2016

Black Friday means bad news for utilities. As I walked into Lowe’s this weekend, I passed a pallet of black Fridayspecials. In this case it was 60watt equivalent LED lightbulbs. I started buying them when they were about $10 a piece as an early adopter but this sale was selling them for $0.89 each. 9watt bulbs that retrofit into standard settings for $0.89. 85% savings on your lighting. You can’t overstate how big of a deal this is for the load profiles for utilities. Electricity sales were down in 2015 by 1%, I wouldn’t be surprised if 2016 was even lower.
NRG quietly adding big MW. NRG has closed its transaction with Sunedison and adds 1.5GW of operating and development assets to its portfolio. The costs are also attractive, NRG is only paying $0.122/watt AC over the entire portfolio.
Solar freakin roads. The solar industry had a meltdown when the first solar roadways video went viral. This year it solar roadways will have been installed in 4 continents including the State of Georgia. Payback is terrible, use case is circumspect but I would love to have a solar driveway.
Data signaling trouble ahead? Trina, which is in the crucial weeks ahead of a go-private vote, showed signs of a slowdown in China from their Q3 results. We also had some less than desired interconnection numbers from California in the fall. Aside from a global manufacturing oversupply, what other impacts can these slowdowns foreshadow and how will the larger entities react?

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Yann