This is your SolarWakeup for November 18th, 2020
All Eyes On Omnibus. Senator Shelby gives you today’s update on what is going on in Congress. Like every year, legislators are juggling several issues with the addition of COVID this year. In 2020, the Government runs out of money on December 11th if Congress doesn’t agree on a spending bill or a continuing resolution. Senator Shelby says that staff is working on the actual spending bill but acknowledges that the White House isn’t involved in that. The omnibus would be the likely bill to carry tax extenders including possible the ITC. I am expecting Congress to punt on the spending bill, here’s why. On December 11th, California certifies its vote and will officially put Biden over 270 electoral votes and December 14th the electoral college will vote in DC to certify the election. Twitter may go crazy during that 3 day period and I don’t see Trump signing anything, including a trillion dollar budget at this point.
Getting Back To Even. Before Biden can start on the plan to decarbonize electricity generation his administration will have to undo 100s of environmental deregulations before being able to save more carbon going forward. On the positive, it seems that people have been keeping track on what that Trump team has done and prepared the counterpunch.
ZETA 94.9. This was the classic rock station when I was growing up and today ZETA is the Zero Emission Transportation Association (zeta2030.org). 28 big companies are the founding members including the EV manufacturers as well as utilities like SCE, ConEdison, PG&E and Southern. Missing is NextEra, Ford, General Motors and any of the oil majors. If anyone knows their membership dues structure, let me know.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 17th, 2020
Big Rundown, Highlights. The news are deep today, so let’s do some quick summaries of what you need to know today. Starting off, not solar related but you’re running a business in the strangest times ever. There are now two vaccines likely to start circulating in the near future. How do you plan on managing your business through the current spike of the virus and do you expect to ask your employees to get the vaccine, if so in what situation? What would you do if your employer asks you to get vaccinated? This isn’t a political statement, I’m going to ask you to give me feedback so that others may learn from your responses.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 16th, 2020
The Leadership Outlook. SunPower’s CEO, Tom Werner, may have the most direct, yet politically correct statement about the Biden victory. When asked about the fact that Biden isn’t a climate denier Werner said,” It helps a lot.” He goes on to add that a stable regulatory environment would be a great benefit to the solar market. This is in line with what I got from my conversation with Abby Hopper, the CEO of SEIA. That is why everyone is working hard on the ITC extension now, businesses have to plan in a way that takes the peak and cliff away from the strategy side.
Buy What You’re Selling. If you were on our resi market call last week you heard me say that solar companies need to start believing in their own growth. The solar market is in one of the tightest supply markets I’ve seen since 2007 mostly because manufacturers were nervous about the COVID effect on market demand and forecasts were cut to 2GW when in reality we will pass 3GW and have Q1 and Q2 reach all-time highs. No matter the size of your solar company, you should be thinking about ordering now for Q1 and Q2 deliveries. Manufacturers should be running their businesses as if the ITC has already been extended, time to buy into our own market.
The Maps In The Oval. Joe Biden is going to look at the energy transition from a big picture perspective, like the smart grid map that he talks about. The map that Madam Vice President Harris will look at is what Axios is reporting on today, local pollution at the neighborhood level. The Environment Defense Fund has been doing methane measurements across the Country that do similar data visualization. The local pollution maps are going to drive the legal strategy for showing that polluters harm minority and low-income communities to a much higher degree than others. For the handful of coal plants that are still without retirement dates and weaker plants sitting in neighborhoods, watch for those to be replaced by energy storage before the end of the first term.
Solar Steel. Nucor, the steel manufacturer, has signed a 250MW PPA with EDF Renewables in Texas. This should be the steel going into all the trackers and C&I racking equipment, good old American made steel with American sunshine. In Texas. Are we mainstream yet?
Will The MOPR Go SWOPR? The MOPR was an attempt by the Trump team to upend local energy markets to prop up coal and gas plants against solar and wind projects. There was hope for a national 100% RPS but that is unlikely in a GOP Senate or even a 51-49 Dem senate. Perhaps the opposite of a MOPR, executive action towards solar and wind is possible if some adjustments to FERC are made. It still would find opposition from State and regional energy markets but likely align with their goals more than that MOPR ever did.
Spotlight On Community Clinic. This 412 kW-DC solar carport installation at Vista Community Clinic (VCC) will provide long term renewable energy for the sustainability-driven healthcare facility. M Bar C Construction, CollectiveSun, and VCC leadership joined together in bringing this system from funding to design to installation. Solar energy produced from the installation will free up facility resources allowing VCC to continue to serve their patients and the surrounding community while setting a powerful example of their commitment to renewable energy.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 13th, 2020
Market Analysis Conference Call. In a few hours you can join me and other solar pros as we talk about the the current state of the solar market. We’ll talk about the election, ITC, supply chain shortages and more. Call is open to anyone for free, you can register here.
The Top 3 Policies. I asked Abby Hopper what the top three policy issues were in the next Congress and White House. First was the ITC, getting it extended and hopefully back to 30% with the addition of energy storage. Second was trade, fixing it and improving it to make domestic manufacturing thrive. Third came in two parts but with the same intention of putting more solar under the sun. 3a is the lack of efficiency in the interconnection process for solar farms, we’ve talked about how bad the interconnection queues are right now. 3b is permitting for residential solar, with the goal of making it digital, standardized and instant. Listen to the whole conversation here.
Trillion Dollar Voice. This is a big deal, BlackRock’s Larry Fink is publicly backing mandatory climate reporting by corporations. This is a risk issue, companies that have thousands of employees in a single location for example could be at risk if a natural disaster becomes more common. It also ensures that companies are thinking about future regulatory issues around pollution and explaining to investors what steps they are taking to mitigate this.
Ford And Rivian Week. Rivian is releasing their configurator next week if you put the deposit down and the week after if you haven’t. The 300 mile range SUV and pickup truck definitely has my eye from an appeal standpoint, they definitely should let me get a press ride in. More relevant to many of you, Ford announce an electric version of their popular work van, Transit. Around $50k for the 125 mile range work vehicle could be ideal for solar installers.
Enjoy Your Weekend! Have Friday the 13th! Check out the Buyer’s Group price list if you haven’t
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 12th, 2020
Post Election Interview. As promised, yesterday I spoke with SEIA’s CEO, Abby Hopper. SEIA and the solar industry have to maneuver a divided government in an effort to move solar forward for the solar+ decade. We talk about the ITC extension, trade issues and improving interconnection/permitting issues for all parts of solar. You can find the podcast on your favorite stream or here.
Post Election Market Update. On Friday you can join me on Roth Capital’s solar market update call. Register for that here as we talk about politics, supply chain constraints and just how fast the market is growing.
Biden Makes Moves. The President-elect named his long time advisor and former ebola czar as the next White House Chief of Staff. Ron Klein has been Biden’s COS before and knows where the keys to the situation room are. There are names floating for cabinet members and also the idea of creating a climate czar or climate department. Governor Inslee, recently reelected, is often the name that comes up when discussing a climate leader but don’t get too lost in the headline names. The key is to find the staff that get into the weeds of the policy. I’m more interested in the chief of staff to the FERC commissioners or the legislative affairs director for energy policy than the climate czar. Be patient, hiring will happen over the next two months.
The Smart Grid Poster. It’s not the most exciting topic but interconnection queues are well over 100GW and the cost to upgrade the grid is getting higher every day. There is a misaligned interest between the grid operator and generators while the grid is in bad shape. It was built decades ago and that is why there was a map of a 21st century smart grid in Joe Biden’s office as Vice President. Also, think of where this grid would be built. Tens of billions of dollars would be invested in a lot of the states that have republican representation in the Senate. Biden is going to want FERC to get RTOs to clear queues and let wind and solar projects move forward. Maybe we will have infrastructure week coming soon after all.
Buy Smarter. Solar products don’t get to installers in a straight line. It goes through layers, packaging, repackaging, unloading and reloading of containers to get to its final destination. Most of the time, installers pay more than double than the original cost to manufacturer because of those inefficiencies. Plus the pricing for products is not transparent which makes one installer pay more than the next. Take some of that inefficiency out of the process by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group, a membership organization that puts the purchasing power back in installers’ hands. Find out more at solarwakeup.com/pricing
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 11th, 2020
What Can Joe Do? In the past 4 years America learned a lot about what is and is not possible for the executive branch to do without congressional approval. The Supreme Court has heard several cases that made that box clearer including ability to designate a national emergency and issue executive orders. Whether Biden, a politician who favors tradition, gets his hands dirty in this path is to be determined.
Is Solar VC Hot? I think so, there are multiple investment opportunities that the informal SolarWakeup syndicate is looking at to participate in. We are also seeing traditional VC getting involved. A lot of this is because ‘passing the hat’ is possible within this readership that was not just a few years ago. Not everyone has the appetite to do angel investing but more and more of you are doing well and have strong conviction about where the market is going. No longer is the first slide in every deck, trying to sell the future of the solar market growth. Raising a couple million dollars in solar is now much more possible than ever before and when a market invests in itself, outsiders don’t want to be left behind.
Interested In A DC Job? Clean Energy 4 Biden is taking names of solar pros that are interested in learning more about working in DC. This is not directly affiliated with the administration but it could be a great way to make it know that you are interested in working for President Biden. You can enter your information on their intake form.
NextEra Wants More. In the past month NextEra has approach Duke for an acquisition and now has offered $15billion to Evergy the parent of Kanas City ower and Light and Westar Energy. Evergy has 5000 employees with and over $5billion in revenues while serving over 500,000 customers. This is a core geography for NextEra’s wind unit and may be a strategic initiative to be more aggressive than the oil companies who also have the cash to do this.
Let’s Talk DERs. Two of the Bay Area’s leaders in distributed resources, Nick Chaset, CEO of EBCE a CCA based on Oakland, and Cisco DeVries, CEO of OhmConnect, wrote what many of us are saying. California needs to get its act together with regard to distributed resources. At the end of the day consumer behavior and benefits will follow the pricing signals that the market sends. If DERs get recognized, watch out for major growth in storage for solar installations.
Buy Smarter. Solar products don’t get to installers in a straight line. It goes through layers, packaging, repackaging, unloading and reloading of containers to get to its final destination. Most of the time, installers pay more than double than the original cost to manufacturer because of those inefficiencies. Plus the pricing for products is not transparent which makes one installer pay more than the next. Take some of that inefficiency out of the process by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group, a membership organization that puts the purchasing power back in installers’ hands. Find out more at solarwakeup.com/pricing
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 10th, 2020
Interview with SEIA’s Abby Hopper. Tomorrow I host a Q&A with SEIA’s CEO Abby Hopper. You can participate by submitting your questions, the interview will be recorded and published here on Thursday. The time for politics is now and we all have to be on the same page with our talking points.
The Right Messaging. This is the line that the Biden administration should use. We’re not proposing radical solutions, in fact BP is right along with us. Of course the hope is to go much farther but the market has already decided that coal has transitioned to gas and gas is being dumped by industry. The same way that Trump couldn’t save coal, Biden can only accelerate what is already happening. And if he can make everyone believe that oil companies are on board, let’s go!
Holy MISO. The buzz around the SolarWakeup trading desk was that the interconnection queue for MISO is growing and 57GW is now the total active pipeline. Much like the studies announced in the Southwest Power Pool, where transmission studies just announced an $8.5billion price tag for infrastructure upgrades for the interconnection of 14GW of renewables. In reality we likely need as much of the 57GW as we can build and DC should think about how to leverage infrastructure week to make the smart grid work.
Would Disclosures Work? The UN Climate Envoy is backing a plan to make shareholders participate, review and/or vote on corporate climate plans during annual shareholder meetings. In an open market you would think that this is unnecessary as we’ve seen fund managers and investors argue for corporate ESG. If they are not content with the corporate goals and disclosures will they sell their investments? The envoy is arguing that regulated disclosure is required to ensure compliance with stated goals since they are filing to their truth not just opining on hopes on a call.
How To Charge It Up. GM announced hiring of 3,000 new employees to accelerate their EV rollout. We’ve already covered VW, Daimler and others doing similar things in order to catch up with Tesla. California set the benchmark of 100% new cars as EVs by 2035 already but didn’t talk at all about how to charge this additional load given it’s all going to charge in a distributed network. This could be Biden’s secret plan to supercharge solar, in a way to electrify the automotive sector of the coming decade.
I’m Excited. The most exciting part of the new administration for me is how many of you will be working in it. While we may not have enough grey hair in our readership to make one of your the climate czar (maybe) but we have all the intelligence and experience to staff up the climate office, office of legislative affairs and agencies around DC to make sure that solar, storage and DERs are well represented.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 9th, 2020
President-Elect Biden. Saturday morning’s crepe making was interrupted by a call by the networks that former Senator and Vice-President had earned the title of President-elect. It also means that California’s Senator Harris was now Vice President-elect Harris, the first woman elevated to the office. Congratulations to them, and many of you, for this achievement. Also a word to those of you that didn’t pick the Biden Harris ticket, some of you have explained to me your reasons, I hope that you will find this administration more receptive to your input than the Trump administration did before and you will give them a chance. As a father of three, including a 8 year old daughter, I was moved throughout the day as my daughters, who didn’t care much about Joe Biden becoming President, but repeatedly said Madam Vice President.
An Ambitious Agenda. As President-elect Biden laid out in his speech on Saturday night and throughout the campaign, climate change and renewable energy are at the top of the to-do list. Over the coming weeks, we will separate the issues and where they need to go in order for change to occur. Some will be able to be handled via executive order, some via agencies, administrations, or commissions while others require congressional action. Trade organizations, including SEIA, came out to congratulate the new administration. SEIA also included a robust 100 day plan that was ready to go, you can see that here. SolarWakeup will host a live Q&A with SEIA’s Abby Hopper to discuss the ideas and ways things could go.
Clean Energy’s Campaign Impact. In May, a group of clean energy professionals took to organizing Clean Energy 4 Biden. CE4B grew to over 11,000 grassroots activists and raised OVER $3.2million dollars and that doesn’t count the many additional money raised for congressional races. Never before, has the solar industry had a noticeable impact and built relationships with members as well as the administration to this extent. Biden’s senior advisors know who we are and what we did. Solar also held events with Senator-elect Mark Kelly and Senator Heinrich and a local event with congressman Crist.
But The McConnell Senate. This has been the headline that every doubter is using to say that the climate agenda is DOA. First, we won’t know the Senate makeup until early January when two Senate races in Georgia are decided. But let’s assume that McConnell keeps the gavel. Do not, I repeat do not, underestimate the value of Biden’s time in the Senate. But Obama you will say, McConnell will block everything. Obama was a junior Senator that used the seat to catapult himself to the White House, the first Senator to get elected to President since Nixon. Biden spent 39 years as a Senator, not only does he know (really know) the sitting Senators he also knows the staffers and lobbyists that make the system move. President-elect IS institutional memory and I’m not going to underestimate it. McConnell doesn’t have a mandate, at best we will see a 52-48 split, which is one better than currently since the tie goes to the Vice-President. Two things to remember to make you think with optimism, every solar victory started as an idea that most said is impossible and can’t be done (ask anyone that has been advocating in Arizona and Virginia) and McConnell brought a spending bill with ITC extension to Trump who rejected it.
Situational Awareness. McConnell has said that he is planning a COVID stimulus package for when the Senate returns to DC and there is an omnibus spending bill deadline of December 11th. It may end up as a continuing resolution but spending bills have been a great vehicle for solar. There are rumors of ITC negotiations occurring as we speak, more to come on that.
Duke Won’t Settle. Duke isn’t interested in settling with environmental groups for the coal ash disaster they caused. Let’s see if they find the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and EPA more appealing parties to negotiate with. Biden has said a climate czar is coming and with the EPA’s power to regulate emissions, as well as Harris’s history in fighting unjust pollution, I believe the enforcement actions of this administration to have the biggest, fastest impact on fighting climate change.
Other Tidbits. FERC’s chair lost his position as chair because he was ‘too friendly’ to renewables including supporting DERs. Europe’s reaction to the Biden win largely included climate change in the opening paragraph. South Florida is currently underwater with Hurricane Eta dumping rain for several days. Over the past few years rising oceans have made drainage slow dramatically which cause streets and homes to flood. I’ll post some pictures on my Twitter tomorrow.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 6th, 2020
No Call, But It’s Coming. Having stayed awake until the early morning hours, waiting for a call on some set of States to put Biden of 270, it looks like we’ll wait another day. That’s all it seems though, most likely both NV and PA will be called for Biden at some point today. Georgia and Arizona will go through some post election confirmations but America will most likely talk about what’s next. SolarWakeup will be part of that conversation and I welcome your thoughts. Next week we will talk about ITC, stimulus bills, Senate confirmations and more, but it will wait because I’d rather be late and right than a pundit that’s early and wrong.
Silicon Deals. Silicon supply chain could be an easy win for America if we restart domestic production. Looks like that could be happening earlier than I thought.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for November 5th, 2020
Another Day. With the election yet to be determined and likely not fully in view for a day or more, I’ll refrain from my thoughts on what results do or don’t mean. More to come when we know more.
Something To Watch. McConnell is saying more stimulus is needed when the Senate returns, a funding bill is also needed by early December. Both of those will be lame duck bills that will need Trump’s signature regardless of election results.
Poor Energy Punditry. Because people want to be first to the story, most solar/cleantech/climate change stories are focused on the likely outcome that the Senate will remain under republican control. Without going too deep, let me make one comment. Under a scenario where democrats controlled all chambers and the White House, climate and energy policies were very likely to be pushed out of top position for other issues that are very partisan. Climate on the other hand has supporters on both sides of the aisle in addition to 80%+ of voters from both parties. It is very likely to consider climate/energy/infrastructure as the most progressive issue that can be negotiated in a split government. More to come on this that will prove my point very soon. (Note: You can see the counterpoint from almost half the stories in today’s rundown but I’m confident in my opinion on this, McConnell included a solar ITC extension during the first Trump term).
Resi Installers Grow Profits. Installers that are members of the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group are saving over $1,000 per project through our novel method of leveraging higher volume to drive down prices for the installers. We’d love to talk to you and show you what you can save. SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group is a monthly membership program (like Costco) that gives you better pricing on the products you are using already.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann