Back in the home office after a week in San Francisco. I went to cover the asset management event because I was curious to see how the 40GW of US projects are being managed. Still a very immature market but its filled with software platforms doing asset management, performance analytics and O&M ticketing. There are also established/larger companies like Mercatus getting into the space. Mercatus announced the expansion of its software adding an asset management to its project platform. That being said, a vast majority of the projects are still being managed in excel files which most vendors called their biggest competitor. Look for more content about this sector, I am officially intrigued.
Consumer Protection. This is the next big thing and it’s not just from the people going after solar. There are definitely forces being pushed and funded by utilities to protect the consumers but the solar industry is abuzz about this as well. SEIA came out this week with a consumer education system and legislation in State’s like Florida is looking to add protection. I don’t have a problem with the concept but let’s not overreact and overextend. Ask your clients to give you good ratings on platforms like BBB or Google. Earn their trust and don’t let fast talking, fly by night sales people speak for the solar industry. This isn’t a solar problem, this is a problem caused by a few bad actors passing through our industry. Don’t you think there are bad mortgage brokers, roofers, plumbers, etc running around? Nobody in their industry is overreacting.
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Raising money, the old fashioned way. First Solar has the biggest war chest in the solar industry with about $2billion worth of capital. Much of that is now going into rebuilding its manufacturing capacity for the Series 6 module. Making money through project development has been the leading way for the company to do as well as it has, riding the PPA contracts through product cost decreases. This time it’s another 250MW solar farm in Nevada.
Make sure you listen to the latest episode of EnergyWakeup. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
Squeeze the lemon. Creating finality for SunEdison isn’t going to come without some more fighting. The unsecured creditors have filed objections with the bankruptcy court regarding Brookfield’s acquisition of the TERP and GLBL shares. I’m sure things will still end up the same way but this is part of the process regardless.
- PV-Magazine: Group asks Oregon AG to investigate solar sales practices
- Bloomberg: First Solar Completes Sale of 250-Megawatt Nevada Solar Farm
- Business Journals: SunEdison creditors oppose $2.5 billion sale of yieldco shares
- PV-Tech: Suniva making job cuts across all operations in Georgia and Michigan
- Greentech Media: Mid-Atlantic Grid Can Lose Coal & Nuclear, Remain Reliable With Natural Gas & Renewables
- Huffington Post: Exxon Mobil Urged White House To Stick With Paris Climate Agreement
- CleanTechnica: NREL Publishes Landmark Residential Solar PV + Energy Storage Cost Breakdown
- Utility Dive: Report – SDG&E issues new RFO for community solar after few bids
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann