This is your SolarWakeup for January 27th, 2017

Elon Goes to Washington. Elon was seen in the White House this week with some decent seating given the other CEOs around the table. While clean energy and electric cars aren’t aligned with the Trump White House, making cars, batteries and solar panels in the US surely is. Working on aging infrastructure also aligns with the interests the administration has. Elon also came out and supported Rex Tillerson for State this week in a tweet to reporter Dana Hull. Tillerson had previously supported a carbon tax and during his nomination hearings was supportive of solving climate change through engineering, a favorite of Musk.

EU goes anti tariffs. Wow! Sometimes voting politicians push back against staff and this time the EU members have. They voted against the proposed two year extension of the tariffs on Chinese modules. Now staff will have to go back and figure out an alternative plan. Led by the UK delegation, which makes sense because they just had a massive investment into solar that could not be cut tremendously if modules were allowed to enter the markets without duties or tariffs.

Tough to be a supplier. As with the global market data, suppliers also have the issue of contracting financials in an expanding market. With costs coming down rapidly, manufacturers have to figure out a way to cut their spending because revenues are dropping without margins going up. Several markets in the US are now well below $1/watt installed and a ton of markets globally are well into the $0.80’s. That doesn’t leave a room for anyone to make money but does bode well for the markets that are seeing solar at 4 and 5 cents per kWh. Keep your eyes on the next India auction as those prices should get rather crazy.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann