No More Naked Roofs. Every house has a roof on it so why doesn’t every roof have solar? Within our community this doesn’t seem like a stretch and even may be our goal, so why doesn’t this possibility get more airtime in mainstream news? The jobs, the distributed resilience and cost savings for consumers are all benefits that will be the side effect of this endeavor that wouldn’t actually cost anything.
The Google Promise. There are layers to the Google promise on carbon neutrality. In this latest announcement, Google said it will only use carbon free electricity by the year 2030 including in a 24/7 time matching. This will drive significant energy storage and other generation that will allow for that to happen. Second, Google has now repaid its climate debt, meaning its emissions since startup have been offset. This is the first time I’ve seen climate debt paid off, what would happen if every Fortune 500 did this going back to 2000 or earlier?
Making Climate Political. Normally politicians have to message in order to drive polling numbers in their favor. Climate and clean energy issues have long polled well in a bipartisan way but have failed to drive the politicians in their direction. One of the problems may have been that bipartisan issues don’t do well in politics. To that end, Joe Biden’s campaign seems to be happy to take the issue as their own and making it partisan. I don’t love the idea of solar becoming 100% partisan but it’s been somewhat so already. Let’s hope both sides fight over solar as their issue and who loves it more.
A SPAC To Watch. SPAC are all the rage these days. While not new, acquisition corporations are gaining favor in the capital markets as an easier and less turbulent path to public markets. This SPAC, Climate Change Crisis Real Impact I Acquisition Corp, has a notable CEO in David Crane. Crane, as you may recall, sounded the alarm about climate change when he was the CEO of NRG. The Chairperson of the SPAC is Mary Powell, former CEO of Green Mountain Power and still a director of Sunrun amongst other clean energy companies.
New Products, Lower Prices. The SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group has been hard at work to improve the product and price list over the past few weeks. If you haven’t talked with us about it, send us a note or do a price discovery.
- Grist: A solar-paneled roof over everyone’s head? Totally doable, she says.
- Reuters: Google aims to run on carbon-free energy by 2030
- Axios: Why Biden and the Democrats went big on climate change
- PV-Magazine: Software is eating renewable power markets: cleantech investment roundup
- PV-Tech: BP – Up to 550GW new solar and wind capacity could be added each year by 2030
- Greentech Media: UK Regulator Accused of Playing Politics Over ‘Perverse’ Price Controls
- Utility Dive: FERC reverses 40 years of PURPA precedent in ruling on small solar definition, punts on storage question
- Bloomberg: The Solar-Powered Future Is Being Assembled in China
Opinion
Best, Yann