The Trade Association Consolidation. Bloomberg’s Brian Eckhouse has the reporting that a new trade association is forming out of AWEA, the national wind association. American Clean Power Association. Founding members include NextEra, Berkshire Hathaway and Avangrid. The idea is to consolidate the message around clean energy without regard to the source of the fuel, planning to represent all sources including solar.
SEIA’s Decision, Position. If you are in the solar industry, you should thank SEIA’s leadership for not joining the new group. Sources over the past year have been telling SolarWakeup that SEIA was discussing the option of being part of the new association. While I think we have gone beyond the fight between RE sources (see West Wing episode), how would an all source association advocate for net metering policies in California for example or deciding whether QF facilities should be 10 or 50MW. More importantly the new association, in my opinion, represents the status quo and leaves no room for getting involved in energy choice discussions or fighting IRP filings given the fox is in the henhouse. The political power for clean energy is in solar because everyone has the ability to participate, you can put a panel on your RV, 20 on your home or build out a 1GW solar farm. This is a tough year for associations that lost their revenue streams in trade shows, didn’t qualify for PPP and companies struggle to pay their fees, SEIA still bet on the future of solar by staying the course alone.
The Best Blackout TicToc. When the lights went out in California, and more importantly when they didn’t (but almost), a lot of factors came into play. This quote from CALSSA’s leader sums it up, “They were texting and emailing and calling us: ‘We need all of your battery customers giving us power,’” said Bernadette Del Chiaro. Grid operators had no plan on how to activate the distributed resources across the State and no way to send a market signal to create value for homeowners discharging their batteries. The resiliency ended up showing up out of goodwill from homeowners while an unnamed natural gas plant went offline when it was being counted on. This is part of the reason this publication has written at length about price signals for distributed resources and giving local RA procurement control to the operators closest to the capacity. Residential solar and storage can now provide up to 530MW of capacity and that’s over 1GW next year and growing. Add that with demand response operated by companies like OhmConnect and a real plan could provide over 2GW on demand.
Clean Jobs Good Jobs. I think everyone that works in solar loves their job. Loving your job doesn’t mean you don’t aspire for more but you love what you do and the impact it has on society. I’d love to see a Polaroid campaign of you and your employees/colleagues that says why you love your job.
The Savings Commence. Yesterday, an installer saved over $10,000 buying modules through the Buyer’s Group, it costs you money not taking a look and calculating your savings. If you’re curious about our price list, hit reply or take the price discovery.
Sell More Solar with CollectiveSun. My friends at CollectiveSun know Nonprofits. They know that Nonprofits are looking for three things when going solar: a simple and user friendly process, the ability to utilize tax benefits, and access to funding that doesn’t break the bank. CollectiveSun can help you give them all that and more. These days, more than ever, Nonprofits are looking to lower their operating expenses. CollectiveSun will help you generate more sales and will work with you to become the go-to solar installer for Nonprofits. Click here to learn more about working with CollectiveSun.
Have a great weekend!
- Bloomberg: U.S. Clean Power Giants to Join Forces to Build Lobbying Muscle
- New York Times: Its Electric Grid Under Strain, California Turns to Batteries
- Los Angeles Times: Clean energy jobs are coming. Here’s how to make sure they’re good jobs
- Florida Daily: State Regulators Take Aim At Home Solar Rights
- PV-Tech: Gigawatts of solar and storage – Inside Duke Energy Progress’ renewables-heavy IRP
- PV-Magazine: Rooftop solar in Indiana worth 13¢/kWh, not 3¢/kWh, says expert witness
- Solar Builder: Grid saturation lessons from Australia and Hawaii
- GreenBiz: With the shift toward electrification, decoupling remains key for driving decarbonization
- Utility Dive: FERC reversal on electric co-op exit fee jurisdiction could have broader rate implications, analysts say
Opinion
Best, Yann