Q1 Solar Market Grows. In the first three months of the year, the U.S. installed 2.7 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV), making it the most solar ever installed in the first quarter of a year. The residential market experienced annual growth as well. According to the report, the U.S. saw 603 megawatts of residential solar installations during the first quarter, up 6 percent annually. In fact, the report notes that 29 percent of residential capacity in Q1 2019 came from markets outside the top 10 solar states by capacity, the highest share for emerging markets in industry history. Source: SEIA
Solar And Storage Top Finance Survey. When it comes to the most attractive investments, investors told ACORE that PV and storage come out on top. This was the result when ACORE asked about investment priorities for the next three years by investors that look to deploy more than $500million per year.
Electrification Driven By Democratization. “Most Californians will soon drive an electric car. Good bye dirty air. Goodbye smelly gas station. Goodbye international oil cartel determining the cost to fill up. Now is the time to think differently about energy: who owns it, who controls it, who manages it. Thanks to renewable energy, we have the opportunity to achieve aggressive climate goals while easing the transition to a cleaner future through democratized energy.” CALSSA’s Bernadette Del Chiaro
More Storage In More Places. There’s been talk about merchant storage in ERCOT for a few years and now someone is going for it. The key is to make your money back fast before the market changes or adjusts to the storage unit on the node. This happened to operators in PJM that made a bet before losing the valuable revenue streams.
Get Active Income Allocation Instead. The MLP legislation is back in Congress. I would love to see someone propose solar to get the same ability as oil and gas to offset active income with passive tax equity investments. That would create the largest access the solar industry has ever had to tax equity with legislation that simply requires the addition of ‘and solar’.
The Energy Fair. Meet me next week in Custer, Wisconsin for the famous Energy Fair as I host a special edition of SolarWakeup Live! sponsored by Panasonic with leaders in Wisconsin’s solar market. This is my first time to this event and would love to meet many of you! More info on the event here
- PV-Tech: US clean energy investors keenest on PV, storage in trillion dollar race
- Sacramento Bee: What impact will California’s aggressive climate change goals have on drivers?
- GreenBiz: Utilities’ energy storage growing like gangbusters
- Greentech Media: GlidePath Builds Merchant Battery Plant in ERCOT, Bucking Industry Wisdom
- Bloomberg: Subsidy-Free Green Power May Be Closer Than You Think in Germany
- Utility Dive: Congress pushes for renewables to have same private investment incentives as fossil fuels
- Wisconsin State Journal: How did solar energy get so cheap? UW prof probes history of technology
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann