Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for May 14th, 2024

Big Grid. FERC is moving to push for more capital to flow towards grid build-outs, in line with State regulators approving most of the grid optimization requests from IOUs. The no-vote from FERC was a cop-out saying that this is a giveaway to developers when in reality there’s just not enough generation on the grid for the load growth ahead. Interesting how rate based gas power plants never have grid issues…

Unavailable Batteries. Texas has become a hot energy storage market with many unsure how long the ancillary service market will continue (for the foreseeable future given the demand growth and unreliable power plants). On the other hand, storage has a major problem with many storage projects operating at 60-70% availability and less in some cases where commissioning and balancing are dragging project starts by a year plus. This will have to get resolved, in some cases by recommissioning systems and in others by doing optimization projects with folks that “know where to hit the hammer”. Obviously, I have a unique perspective on this, and reminds me of the early days of solar when folks were doing everything in projects because the landscape had not yet matured.

Opinion

 

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 13th, 2024

Noisy Week. We enter this week with all the talk about what the 301 tariff review will bring us and headlines focused on the EV tariffs. The solar and storage industries focused their advocacy to kickstart domestic manufacturing without impacting the markets. Ultimately the hope is that the trade representative understands that many portions of the supply chain aren’t available here yet and we can’t go back to the 1-yard line without disrupting the enormous economic output of the industry. Moreover, with the grid stressed and in need for new generation, solar is the most reliable generation builder at the moment.

The Anti CleanTech Pitch. There’s always a hope to be a non-partisan issue, to rise above the gridlock in DC. Who wouldn’t solar to grow and do well, create jobs etc, even when polling has historically always had solar in the 80% plus range. When it comes to the Presidential election Trump can’t really hit Biden on oil production because Biden has seen oil production rise to all-time highs but he can promise to disrupt the electrification in transportation as much as possible. We all know that politics is a full contact sport, I’ve said it here many times, but a candidate trading executive action openly for fundraising is a bit more than I’ve seen publicly and privately. So let me make a fundraise pitch. SEIA has the SolarPAC, which advances our causes. They do so across both parties and it has been very successful strategy but it needs more funding that can only be raised in lower dollar thresholds. Check that out here.

Opinion

 

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 10th, 2024

Opinion

 

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 9th, 2024

ACP Recap. I spent the last two days in Minneapolis at the ACP show and it was great to see many of you. The show had good traffic but seemed down from last year, notably missing were many of the wind companies and even light booth from the tracker companies. Energy storage definitely led the show, service providers, engineers and OEMs were represented while all the talk centered around load growth and need for resilience. It helped that ERCOT had another peak pricing event that saw energy storage top of some much needed resilience. What did you think of the show?

Talks On Trade. US and China representatives are meeting in DC to talk about the global trade landscape while President Macron of France visited China to talk about cleantech, with a picture of Macron and Xi standing with all of the storage OEM CEOs circulating social media platforms.

Opinion

 

Best, Yann