This is your SolarWakeup for November 2nd, 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

New York Times: It’s All About the Grid

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for October 31st, 2023

Happy Transmission Day. DOE’s loan office has selected three transmission projects for loan guarantees of $1.3billion. Great news, but let’s be real, this is a drop in the bucket. The bucket of need, bucket of pipeline and bucket of what support could be. Getting cheap and reliable energy is impossible if the transmission isn’t there to move it around to places that need it and have ridiculously high energy prices.

Do A Domestic Favor. One of my favorite workdays used to be going into the Quick Mount factory on Saturday mornings and work alongside our team. Mostly I was there to hand out donuts because I slowed the productivity down. But in some ways I loved being in the back of our office where the factory was, hearing the machines punching holes in l-brackets and pressure fitting the infamous elevated water seal, but also running the factory on Saturdays meant that we were running overtime to catch up on higher than forecasted sales the prior week. Unfortunately that factory isn’t there anymore, you could save a few cents moving that production to China. Installers, and more specifically distributors, can be brutal to drive that price down so I always hated losing an installer. If you’re an installer, figure out where your racking comes from and demand a domestic option, trust me the price difference is nothing compared to what a little negotiation on the inverter and panel could do for you. But you could be the reason a factory turns on the lights on Saturday morning.

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.