This is your SolarWakeup for May 11th, 2021

Solar Spills, Revenues, And Oil Wells. You don’t have to listen to the entire Axios interview with Shell’s CEO but note this one line. “Asked when clean energy will be more than 50% of Shell’s business, van Beurden said, “I think that will probably be somewhere in the next decade.” Shell has one of the largest electricity trading books already (in the US) so electricity as a commodity isn’t new but you’ve also seen some solar pros leading Shell New Energies into several investments and the company also bought storage startup, Sonnen, several years ago. In a world where transportation is electrified, i.e. oil replaced by electrons, you have to ask yourself what the company fuels as the new oil well. While Shell sells 4x as much commodity as it produces, you can correlate that same multiple between trading and generation of electrons. In this decade, Shell’s new oil well is the solar/wind/storage asset that cleans up that solar spill Vote Solar has been warning us about for years.

Midwest Policy Job. Join Vote Solar as the Midwest Policy Director, apply here.

Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.

 Opinion

Best, Yann