This is your SolarWakeup for January 19th, 2018

Solar Reality Show. “You know, they dump ‘em – government-subsidized, lots of things happening – they dump the panels, then everybody goes out of business,” Trump said (to Reuters in the Oval Office) just before teasing that the announcement on tariffs is forthcoming. Advocates appear to be indicating another level if the tariffs come back bad for solar. They are saying that tariffs could be the baseline towards a global settlement on modules and silicon but analysts are not optimistic that this could happen. Either way, we will be going through this in great detail at SolarWakeup Live in New York in a few weeks. For one day only, you get 50% off by using code LIVE50 thanks to the bigger theater space we moved into.

SolarWakeup On The Road. Over the next few months you will have plenty of places to meet me and talk solar. I will be hosting a keynote interview at Midwest Solar Expo in May and COSEIA’s Solar Power Mountain West in March. In February I will be in DC for a few days for a DOE event and speaking at a storage event in San Francisco. Pretty much if there is a microphone that needs to be spoken into, count on me to try and stand behind it. Come say hello at all of these events and look out for the next SolarWakeup Live after New York.

Storage Versus Gas. Gas is getting cheaper and it is much more flexible than peaker plants. It dispatches faster and for shorter periods of time as needed. That being said, stand alone storage economics will be hurt by the volatility of the charging price unless colocated with generation plants, preferably solar plants. If colocated with solar than you must be thinking about dc-coupled because redoing your interconnection and using additional bidirectional inverters will change the way you finance your solar plant. I’d like someone to challenge me on this thinking because I haven’t heard an argument for ac-coupled on colocated plants.

Social Cost Of Business. Blackrock’s CEO, Larry Fink, knows business and he knows businesses that make money. He is also out with a new letter saying that businesses owe society a bit of a social contract and the requirement to think about the longer term. For many of us in solar, we realize our work is hard and oftentimes without thanks. We work on projects with thin margins and a tough road ahead but we know our mission is worth it. Similar to Fink’s social impact I want to ask the following question to solar companies. If you were asked to give $10,000 a year to solar advocates like Vote Solar or your State Chapter, would it kill your business? If yes, do you think your business has issues other than market/regulatory? If no, can your business be killed by market/regulatory changes?

Power Market Mayhem. January has been a crazy month for power markets. ERCOT went to over $2,000/MWh and gas prices in New York went to over $175/mmBtu. Both crazy.

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Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann