Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for November 8th, 2023

The Grid Needs. Let’s keep it simple, in order to accelerate the deployment of capital we need: improved interconnection process, faster permitting and more price signals.

Interconnections. No deal can get to ready to build and certainly not to notice to proceed without access to the grid connection. This isn’t a simple process to fix but removing the complexity with a bunch of baby steps would come a long way.

Permitting. I’m not advocating for today’s story from Germany but too much home rule may be a problem. Land owners want to monetize their land but being stopped to do so by third parties that slow the development of solar farms. Solar farms don’t impact the neighbourhood with traffic nor change the vista, instead they create new tax revenues and jobs. Permitting and zoning for solar farms ends up being just as important as interconnections but far more arbitrary.

Price Signals. If project cost X, the revenue must be X + Y in order to make an investable return. The higher that the certainty on Y is, the lower the return has to be in order to get an investment committees approval. Solar development has to negotiate decades long revenue certainty in order to get past this step, which isn’t easy while storage is often left working on merchant revenue streams that weren’t really signaled for storage specific reasons. Power markets could create a solar plus storage rate price signal that would drive faster paths to construction for one example or could create storage specific price signals for faster deployment as well.

Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 7th, 2023

Solar And Storage Finance. If you’re in New York for the conference, let me know, I will be here for the event as well.

Getting IEs Up To Speed. Technical views on the entire tech stack of your solar and storage projects. Much is made of asset performance especially now that decade plus of historicals are in the books. For solar it’s all about the technical performance based on the measured sunlight at the site. With batteries the upside is much greater given that power markets can move with volatility while having to match the market opportunity with the asset’s availability. As the asset classes come together, independent engineers will learn more about the parts and pieces that make good projects good.

Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 6th, 2023

If Interest Rates Recover. You have to go back to a few months in 2000 and before that 1993 to find interest rates set by the Federal Reserve to be at today’s levels. You can have two views looking forward, rates will lower back to levels closer to those of the past 20 years or they’ll resemble the 70’s and 80’s, i.e. this is the new normal. From a residential solar perspective, rates are putting a big damper on loans and therefore growth rates while utility rates are rising, they’re not rising as quickly as the solar loan rates are competing with. So if you look at the stock levels of the residential solar companies, this could be a buying opportunity if your view is that things will get better if and when rates recover. Utility scale solar represents a different kind of opportunity for investors. PPA rates are rising partially from supply chain inflation but also cost of capital. Nobody wants to invest in a solar farm at 6% return when you can get that from putting cash into the bank at 5%. So PPA rates will increase and projects will be levered at higher interest rates, some 500bps higher than just a few years ago. But the upside could come if rates recover and projects are refinanced at lower rates with the PPA rate having been settled at today’s higher market. So if your view is that demand for solar hasn’t or will not change, but that interest rates could settle down, there’s some real upside in today’s market conditions. Just don’t get caught being too early or too late.

The Chart. In case you want to see the full history of Federal Reserve rates, see it here.

Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 3rd, 2023

Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.

Opinion

Best, Yann