This is your SolarWakeup for May 17th, 2021
Gas Shortage, EV Impact. Walking up to the cash register at the grocery store, the customer in front of me asked me if I had waited in line to get gas yet. I replied, no, I drive an electric car, without thinking much of it. Until I read today’s top headline, I had not considered the optionality that now exists for consumers. Gas shortage? not for EV drivers. Blackouts? not for folks with solar plus storage. Yes it’s true that there are downside scenarios for EV drivers but the decentralized nature of consumers’ self reliance and self-generation is new to the economic model.
Activism Or Capitalism. ESG investment may seem like an activism victory but I see the investment thesis to be driven by the capitalism side of the ledger. LPs may be calling out ESG reasons for capital allocation but that may be the PR benefit from doing what’s best on a risk adjusted investment. To be clearer, if owning a coal power plant had a 10%+ return opportunity with little risk, capital would still be pursuing that investment regardless of the negative ESG case. On the other hand of the spectrum, capital flowing to solar/storage/wind aren’t doing it because it’s green, but because it has a contracted cash flow that provides a market viable yield.
Generation Forecast Analysis. What happens when the Country heats up this summer and potential fire hot spots cause transmission to shutdown? Reports are saying that outages may occur. In parallel, ACORE has a report that highlights the opportunity created by investing a more dynamic grid.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 14th, 2021
Friday Rundown. Before we get into the quick recap of the news, let’s do a review on what it takes for an issue to become a big issue. When Colonial was attacked by ransomware it was a story, but when gas stations run out of fuel and there’s a run on gas across the east coast it will make headlines that won’t go away until the lines at the gas stations do.
The Hack And Pipe Shutdown. Colonial was attacked by ransomware hackers. The shutdown of the pipelines was precautionary but therein lies the problem for anyone in the energy space. One phish of your employees at the corporate level and companies have to determine what that means to their operating infrastructure, definitely a thought exercise for companies around the Country. The hack, as well as what happened with Solarwinds (not solar related), creates the impact of reaching the President’s desk and an executive order to tighten cyber-security protocols in infrastructure sectors including energy.
Pricing Signals (Again). The grass in California hasn’t been green for a few months and moisture levels don’t look promising. With a tough fire season anticipated and hot days to pressure the energy load, regulators are hoping that energy storage is going to play a role. A role indeed but it that doesn’t mean that energy storage asset owners and developers have received any new pricing signals from the operator, CAISO or any other.
What’s The Right Trade Policy? Administrations may have changed but it comes to trade policy in solar, not much has. There is a universal desire to have cheap solar for consumers while also having a domestic manufacturing market. This means that lowering tariffs for solar modules doesn’t work well for either party including the Biden administration.
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 13th, 2021
More Tomorrow.
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 12th, 2021
It’s Another Lightning. Everything is about to change. With the release of the F-150 EV, especially if it looks like a traditional F-150, Ford will be changing the future of transportation. They should do the Explorer at the same time!
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 11th, 2021
Solar Spills, Revenues, And Oil Wells. You don’t have to listen to the entire Axios interview with Shell’s CEO but note this one line. “Asked when clean energy will be more than 50% of Shell's business, van Beurden said, "I think that will probably be somewhere in the next decade." Shell has one of the largest electricity trading books already (in the US) so electricity as a commodity isn’t new but you’ve also seen some solar pros leading Shell New Energies into several investments and the company also bought storage startup, Sonnen, several years ago. In a world where transportation is electrified, i.e. oil replaced by electrons, you have to ask yourself what the company fuels as the new oil well. While Shell sells 4x as much commodity as it produces, you can correlate that same multiple between trading and generation of electrons. In this decade, Shell’s new oil well is the solar/wind/storage asset that cleans up that solar spill Vote Solar has been warning us about for years.
Midwest Policy Job. Join Vote Solar as the Midwest Policy Director, apply here.
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 10th, 2021
Role Of DG And NEM 3.0. We haven’t talked about it in some time but California is coming up to a legislative crossroads and grid operators may have one less tool to use in their grid planning. There is a bill working through the assembly that could possibly end net metering as we know it and change the rules for existing solar that has been installed. In solar we’ve become normalized by the process of being attacked and hearing the worst-case scenarios only to see the end result work for us. The problem with being numb to the process is that you never know when you may just take it for granted and lose. While it cost jobs in Nevada and Arizona when we lost those net metering battles, imagine the future of NEM 3.0 in California is lost to the incumbents. Not only does it destroy 40% of the market, but it also crushes the foundation of the entire solar market, investor confidence, and the opportunity to continue the energy transition.
Pipeline Cyberattack. A fuels pipeline company was attached by ransomware hackers and had to shut down their pipeline as a precaution. While the infrastructure itself was not impacted by the hack, it clearly identifies the risk of large concentration into that system. It also should create the question internally at your companies how your systems are maintained from a compliance and cybersecurity perspective.
What’s The Plan? The IEA is about to publish the report that outlines its view on how to get to 100% by 2050. Interestingly, the road will likely not only include generation but also the ability to expand and integrate more variable generation using more dynamic infrastructure on the grid-like smart transformers, storage, and HVDC. From an engineering perspective, you have to be excited about what a dynamic grid can do, with more elasticity than ever and generation on both ends of it. The entire planning exercise is made more complicated with the electrification of transportation, just think of the single variable of a school bus fleet needing to be charged at the same location at the same time, a couple of thousand times per day across the Country.
The Infra Bill. Congress is back in session this week. Don’t get distracted by some of the crazy sideshows that are happening or any of the commentary from individuals on either extreme side. This week, Biden is looking to play Let’s Make A Deal!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 7th, 2021
The Jobs Census. While the pandemic took some air out of the jobs market in the solar industry, our productivity increased a great deal. We’re now seeing the lack of workers in solar once again while seeing backlogs and pipelines expand across the market ecosystem. Without a doubt, pipeline of trained workers is a crucial piece of the pie.
Busy Week. Sorry for the lack of content this week, it’s been a busy week at FlexGen and I will be getting back to your regularly scheduled programming next week. Have a great weekend!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 6th, 2021
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 5th, 2021
24 By 7 Procurement. Corporate renewable energy purchasing is headed to the next phase and it is going to impact ecosystems across the market. Corporates have reached their 100% renewable energy goal and now going to the time matching of procurement and usage. Google Cloud is announcing that they are partnering with AES to buy renewable energy matched to their usage. This is a little fish in a big ocean way to do it but here are two things that will happen next. Data centers will go first, not only those that are exclusive to big corporates, but data centers that are providing services to companies will have to match renewable energy to their consumption in order to retain their customer base. Second, renewable energy generators will have to learn to shape their curve. Imagine having to reengineer the 8760 forecast based on the consumption curve of the off taker. Careful though, missing your production could mean having to go to the market to make up the energy and leave you naked on the hedge.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 4th, 2021
May The 4th. May the force of all the regulatory, policy and market tailwinds be with you. EPA is back to protecting the environment from greenhouse gases.
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Yann