This is your SolarWakeup for March 24th, 2020
Spring Break. Short columns this week as half the household is in spring break mode.
The Infra Bill. All eyes this week on the infrastructure proposal from President Biden. It is likely to include a kitchen sink of climate proposals providing major tailwinds to the solar industry.
Financing The Plus+. Solar + Storage PPAs continue to gain momentum among commercial energy consumers. My C&I solar friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) have a great solution for schools, municipalities, non-profits, and commercial & industrial projects. SCF will be hosting a webinar on March 31st, covering industry trends, SCF's new storage pricing & transaction features, as well as challenges and solutions when executing Solar + Storage PPAs. You can sign up here or contact the SCF team at info@scf.com for more information.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 23rd, 2020
Financing The Plus+. Solar + Storage PPAs continue to gain momentum among commercial energy consumers. My C&I solar friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) have a great solution for schools, municipalities, non-profits, and commercial & industrial projects. SCF will be hosting a webinar on March 31st, covering industry trends, SCF's new storage pricing & transaction features, as well as challenges and solutions when executing Solar + Storage PPAs. You can sign up here or contact the SCF team at info@scf.com for more information.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 22nd, 2020
Busted Brackets. I was going to make fun of all of you that picked Illinois to win it all but then Florida went and watched too many family guy clips about Oral Roberts. My championship game remains intact but I guess we’re all assured of a bad year in picking. That is except for our leader, who must reveal their identity to get mid bracket credit, for being in the top echelon of all brackets including having still every Elite Eight team alive.
The Good And Available Jobs. The political pendulum always swings wildly before the pen hits paper and when it comes to infrastructure/climate/
Climate Diplomacy. US and Chinese diplomats met in Alaska for a face to face meeting. Climate was discussed and while there was some hope for a working group to be established, it wasn’t. There were some higher level tensions in the room so climate may actually be a topic where some agreement can be found early on. Let’s see how Blinken and Kerry tag team this effort.
Don’t Call It A Comeback. Some positive movement on PURPA facilities that should make this a viable market going forward, especially in solar plus storage facilities. Look out for the trifecta of tracking solar with storage coming to a neighborhood near you.
Repeal And Replace. Power plants, starting with the ones closest to population centers will be shut down and replaced with cleaner generation and storage in a much more distributed way. I’m saying that the facilities will range from large central solar with grid scale storage, smaller solar farms as you get closer to the demand and then DERs at the demand location. All operated in a systemwide way using smarter and faster pricing signals. We call this the future of ClimateTech.
Financing The Plus+. Solar + Storage PPAs continue to gain momentum among commercial energy consumers. My C&I solar friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) have a great solution for schools, municipalities, non-profits, and commercial & industrial projects. SCF will be hosting a webinar on March 31st, covering industry trends, SCF's new storage pricing & transaction features, as well as challenges and solutions when executing Solar + Storage PPAs. You can sign up here or contact the SCF team at info@scf.com for more information.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 19th, 2020
Have a great weekend! More coming next week.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 18th, 2020
Last, Call Bracketology. Last Call for entries, you must register and get your bracket in before today’s tipoffs. The most important SolarWakeup day of the year is here, time to join this year’s March Madness bracket. As always, the winning bracket gets to write the column for a day as well as an awesome backpack from our friends at EnergeiaWorks, sponsors of the HotJobs. So head to ESPN Fantasy and look for the ‘SolarWakeup 2021’ group and use password solar to join. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join the fun.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 17th, 2020
A Big Market, Gets Bigger. This is the + decade. Solar+, that is. At the core is that the energy transition is happening, in real-time, in front of our eyes. There are still drivers that determine how big, how fast and how beneficial but now SEIA has a forecast for that. SEIA expects that over 324GW of solar will be installed this decade. That’s a lot and the reality is that we will build all of that and much more. We can be happy with that number but never satisfied and thus we need to continue to push the envelope and against any force that is attempting to slow the growth.
Not All Love. I’ve highlighted some of the early work on NEM 3.0 in California and now the utility joint proposal has been published, let’s just say that not everyone is on board with more solar.
Trust The Process. The filing caused market pressure on solar stocks yesterday. On day 1 of the process, we don’t know how it is going to play out and if we are passive in this then it will not be good for solar. This is not just a DG versus central discussion either, this is about controlling the benefit of the generation away from the market and consumers. But if we recognize that political involvement means more value to solar and clean energy companies, involvement that is both people power and dollars for advocacy, then the process should result in a fair outcome because that is what the people want.
Not For Spectators. A lobbyist told me in my very early years in solar that politics is not a spectator sport and it’s full contact, no light days on the Capitol. Ask yourself this, no matter your company, what are you doing to participate in the process?
Bracketology. The most important SolarWakeup day of the year is here, time to join this year’s March Madness bracket. As always, the winning bracket gets to write the column for a day. So head to ESPN Fantasy and look for the ‘SolarWakeup 2021’ group and use password solar to join. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join the fun.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 16th, 2020
Bracketology. The most important SolarWakeup day of the year is here, time to join this year’s March Madness bracket. As always, the winning bracket gets to write the column for a day. So head to ESPN Fantasy and look for the ‘SolarWakeup 2021’ group and use password solar to join. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join the fun.
Farewell GTM. Emma Foehringer Merchant and Julian Spector post their last GTM articles. The end is really here.
Kerry Documents Inside Baseball. GM is hiring EV lobbyists and John Kerry is asking Wall Street to leverage their PR teams to advance climate talking points. Inside baseball is coming to the ClimateTech markets.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 15th, 2020
Bracketology. The most important SolarWakeup day of the year is here, time to join this year’s March Madness bracket. As always, the winning bracket gets to write the column for a day. So head to ESPN Fantasy and look for the ‘SolarWakeup 2021’ group and use password solar to join. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join the fun.
Farewell GTM. Jeff St. John has been writing for GTM since 2008 and he takes the pen to bid farewell. Like many of you, my journey in solar and now storage has run alongside that of GTM. With each step in my career hoping for a new mention on the news site and it was no different in my latest career move. GTM has been the leading insider platform for the better part of the decade and will be missed. I can’t wait to see where the current journalists land and who steps into the void left in the market.
All Eyes On ClimateTech. Energy Impact Partners has a ClimateTech index which has been outperforming the broader tech market. ClimateTech is a broad category in the index but let’s look at the next iteration which will create the next trillion dollar company. ClimateTech is the nexus where hardware and software meet to solve really important climate problems. That nexus allows for the scalability to manage enormous problems and turn them into opportunities.
Do More Infra. The headlines around an infrastructure bill are good on all sides of the argument. Utilities are asking for it, unions and contractors are for it, engineers and generators are begging for it and polling says that voters of both parties love it. So how does it actually get done? Bipartisan support has become a DC problem too hard to solve because there is no attack ad in a win-win policy.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 12th, 2020
Today’s Takeaway. As you head into the weekend and read today’s top stories, I want you to think about the fundamental shift in our industry. For the past 15 years we have been focused on signing long term off take agreements in order to build solar generation, this has been one of the hardest and determining factors in development. Given solar produces energy when the sun shines, this is the bedrock of making the financial model work. Over the next 10 years, our industry will shift into a more complex but financially advantaged position where energy is part of the system and trading that energy drives the financial model. Read between the lines of what BP is saying and Google is planning for, it’s clear as day what this looks like in 5 years.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 11th, 2020
The Software Imperative. We will get into this more in the future but important note to you today as it’s covered in the top article. As solar gets more involved in grid services, virtual power plants, and energy trading, it also gets closer to grid operations. For grid operations, many of the fleet management functions are digital/software focused but they also need to meet regulatory compliance and ensure cybersecurity is central to the function. Solar plus storage plants also have the generation functionality which makes the communication between hardware and software a central function that is hard to find when the experience is not deep given the newness of the market.
Perpetual Interconnect. When the power plant has a perpetual interconnect and opportunity to extend site leases, what happens to the power plant over time? Can you adjust the modules? Will the utility allow for new inverters or even upsizing? What about adding DC or AC-coupled energy storage? All of those revenue opportunities could prove to be a secondary market for existing projects.
Regan To EPA. Congratulations to the new EPA administrator, Michael Regan.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in-person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Have a great day!
Yann