This is your SolarWakeup for November 6th, 2017

First Speaker. SolarWakeup Live! DC is setting up to be a great lineup. Andrea Luecke, President and Executive Director of Solar Foundation, will be joining us on December 6th. Solar Foundation performs the important annual solar jobs census which is currently underway and recently released a report on diversity in the industry. More speakers announced soon.

Power Markets. You probably agree that solar needs to become a more active participant in the power markets. Whether you are doing an off-site PPA or selling power on the wholesale markets, there are questions you want to be educated on. On Tuesday, I’ll have the CEO of a power retail company on stage and I want your questions. What do you want to know and what is important to your business?

Climate Report. In 1990, Congress passed the Global Research Act which led to the release of the updated National Climate Assessment last week. This is a report initiated as a joint effort of over a dozen agencies and brings the administration to the mainstream. “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” Furthermore: “For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

Twitter Trolling. The Rick Perry comments last week brought out a bit of a Twitter troll in me because ‘smart’ people were agreeing with Perry’s comments. Many people were making the point that electricity is good for society and its fight against crime. The problem is that solving this issue doesn’t require fossil fuels. I quickly found myself getting targeted by an ‘academic’ for arguing with Perry’s flawed logic. Money buys access and academia is not immune from it – which saddens me for the students of School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Electrification Design. If you had to design a way to bring energy to an un-electrified village in Africa, how would you do it? Take into account the levels of service: lighting, cooking, cooling, etc – how would it work in your design and how much would it cost?

Clean Air/Clean Water. Pruitt is dismantling scientific advisory boards and replacing members with people that say things like, “air is too clean, children need to breath more irritants, in order to learn how to fight them.” Why is this not a political risk for politicians? Clean air polls very well except campaign advisors don’t seem to think it risky.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann