Utility Activism. APS, the Arizona utility, announced a target of carbon-free by 2050 with some intermediate targets. Their CEO said “We don’t actually know how to get there right now,” which says a lot considering that solar plus storage is at record prices and Arizona consumers would be more than happy to do their part by putting solar and storage on their homes.
What Groups Say. Both SEIA and SEPA were quick to put out comments about the announcement. I was saddened to see that the statements were congratulatory in nature without pushing for more open access or firm technology outlines. In fact it is hard to differentiate the statements between the two groups when there should be. Solar, not smart, energy is going to be the way this gets done for APS consumers and other utilities around the Country. Giving that brand away without debate is bad marketing on our part.
Guess The Source. Here are the two statements. See if you can distinguish them, it shouldn’t be hard but it should be a lot easier. Note that neither makes reference to the consumers. “A number of major U.S. utilities have made commitments to carbon-free by 2050, but Arizona Public Service stands out in the crowd. While any carbon reduction commitment is laudable, APS is among the very small handful of utilities that have coupled their commitment with an aggressive but reasonable interim target and specific actions that demonstrate meaningful progress.” “The commitment that utilities are making to clean energy is reflective of plunging costs and a much stronger business case for going #solar.”
Money To Make It Real. Two groups that have been in the news in the past week are back at it by committing money to the cause, in different ways. BlackRock has backed European Climate Finance Group to build on their project portfolio, this is capital that isn’t novel but the timing makes last week’s shareholder letter backed by action. The other capital commit is from Microsoft, fresh off their carbon negative goal. The Carbon Negative Fund is capitalized at $1billion for carbon capture, reduction and removal technologies. Let’s see what they get into.
- Greentech Media: Arizona Utility APS Commits to Carbon-Free Power by 2050
- GreenBiz: Microsoft’s quest to go ‘carbon negative’ inspires $1B fund
- PV-Tech: BlackRock-backed group unveils US$500m climate fund at Davos
- New York Times: PG&E Announces Deal to Exit Bankruptcy, but Governor Balks
- Axios: Big Oil’s big lobbying Q4
- Vox: How Germany helped make renewable energy cheap for the rest of the world
- PV-Magazine: Tinder, except for solar and sheep
- Los Angeles Times: California needs clean energy after sundown. Geothermal could be the answer
- Bloomberg: Trump’s Titanic Gift to China’s Solar Makers
Opinion
Best, Yann