Dusty Baker Wants To Diversify The Solar Industry Just Like SEIA

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

As most of you know, I’ve long been a crusader for diversity. I helped host the first diversity conference in the hotel industry back in 1998. I took the golf course maintenance industry to task for its lack of diversity in an article headlined, “Why Is This Industry So White?” And I sat on the Minorities in Pest Management committee when I wasn’t writing about cockroaches and bed bugs in the pest management industry.

So diversity is kinda my thing, which is why I am thrilled with the Solar Energy Industries Association’s work on bringing diversity into the solar industry. Abigail Ross Hopper, Andrea Luecke and the teams at SEIA and The Solar Foundation (respectively) have already done more in this industry than any other industry I’ve been in had accomplished – and the beauty is, they’re just getting started.

Dusty Baker, erstwhile baseball player and successful manager, is also interested in diversifying solar, which is why he started Baker Energy Team to focus on the solar industry. Specifically, he joined it after attending several cleantech conferences and noticing there weren’t a lot of people that looked like him, according to a Bloomberg news article about the startup.

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As Bloomberg chronicles,

He founded Baker Energy Team four years ago, between managerial stints with the Reds and Nationals. He wasn’t considering a second act in solar; he already had an upstart wine business. But he took up a longstanding offer to go pheasant hunting with an investment banker he had met in a Chicago hotel bar, which led him to clean-tech conferences in Newport Beach and Las Vegas. “There were no minorities, very few women,” Baker says. “This is an opening for me.”

So far, the business has done a couple of megawatts worth of projects, but Bloomberg reports has has more than 200 MW planned with one of his partners. He’s also looking to start mentorships with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) for engineering students to try and get them into the solar industry, too.

This is, of course, a no-brainer. I don’t know if anyone at SEIA will read this, but Dusty Baker has to be your keynote speaker at next year’s SPI, doesn’t he? I mean, with your commitment to diversity and talk of expanding the reach of solar beyond its traditional boundaries, it makes perfect sense.

I don’t have his phone number, but it’s got to be in the public somewhere (heck, try him at Baker Energy Team). Get him on board to make the keynote speech, and show yet again that you are committed to making the solar industry the diverse industry we know it must become.

Baseball Legend Dusty Baker Wants to Harness the Power of the Sun

Reports: Exxon May Want To Power Itself With Solar And Wind – And Is Close To Signing A PPA

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

It’s as if Apple started using a Microsoft operating system.

Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil-and-gas corporations, put out a request-for-proposal for contracts on at least 100 MW of solar and wind power, and possibly up to 250 MW for the right contracts.

The contracts would be for between 12 and 20 years long, according to Bloomberg reporters who have seen the confidential RFP. It’s also unclear whether the power is intended to fuel the company’s Irving, Texas, headquarters or whether Exxon would re-sell the power to other offtakers.

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It’s not unusual to see oil companies dabble in renewable energy. After all, as Bloomberg points out, Shell and BP have already (re)entered the solar markets and are actively exploring entering wind. But Exxon, the legacy company of John D. Rockefeller’s oil conglomerate, has long held to the precept that it should stick with what it knows.

There is no indication of what has changed the company’s mind, but if Exxon joins the renewable revolution, its importance can’t be overestimated. As Kyle Harrison, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg NEF, said:

I have never seen an oil and gas company doing a corporate PPA anywhere near that size. If you’re seeing the biggest oil and gas companies going out and making investments in clean energy, it shows that renewables are cost-competitive. This can be a way for them to show a commitment to sustainability without suffering economically.

It would indeed be something of a game-changer, particularly in Texas (where the RFP is for). Texas is one of the largest wind-producing states in the country, and even solar is becoming cost-competitive with coal in the Lone Star State. What a revolution it would be to see this once and future oil capital of the world slowly but surely move on toward a renewable future. You’d expect that kind of future in states like California and Arizona (and even Massachusetts). But in Texas? A move to renewables – especially by a company like Exxon – would really change the conversation around renewable energy, in the best way possible.

What Corporation Buys The Most On Solar? Bloomberg Has The Stats

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Corporations are driving clean energy adoption globally, and they have procured more than ever before so far in 2018 – at least according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Through July, global corporations have already shattered the 2017 full-year record by more than 2 GW through July, having already purchased 7.2 GW through July vs 5.4 GW in all of 2017. It’s being driven by sustainability plans and the incentives to build clean energy projects.

And solar is making up an ever-increasing portion of the purchases, thanks to plummeting PV prices – though wind still makes up the majority of purchases globally.

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Corporate PPAs are driving the growth, particularly in the United States, BNEF reports:

As a result, we’re seeing corporations locking into fixed, long-term clean energy contracts, hedging against volatile prices in the wholesale market. This is known as the virtual PPA model, and remains the most common corporate procurement mechanism.In the U.S., companies have grown more comfortable with the virtual PPA model, serving as the offtaker on several projects, but smaller companies are also increasingly pooling their electricity demand together to access the economies of scale achieved through larger solar and wind projects, known as aggregation.

BNEF reports the top five companies with solar installations – are Facebook, Microsoft, Walmart, MGM Resorts and Google. The company expects the growth to continue because companies have already committed to purchasing a certain amount of clean energy.

Bloomberg NEF forecasts that the current 140 signatories of the RE100 (a pledge to offset 100% of electricity demand with renewables) will need to purchase an additional 197 TWh of clean energy in 2030 to reach their targets. Were this shortfall to be met with long-term contracts for new solar and wind projects, it would lead to an additional 100GW of build – for context, this is slightly larger than California’s entire electricity grid today.

In other words, the future of clean energy continues to be bright on a global level – and solar continues to increase its hold on the international clean-energy market. It’s nice to see something we all feel instinctually borne out by research and statistics from BNEF.