First Solar Grows. First Solar announced that they are expanding their manufacturing plant in Ohio by 3.3GW. This will be the 3rd plant in Ohio and will start manufacturing in 2023. First Solar is doubling down on the domestic manufacturing advantage they have, in part due to the supply chain differentiation the company has. If only the Ohio legislators saw the ability to create local policies that would enable First Solar modules to gain a market within the surrounding areas of this job boom.
Oil Majors, Look Out. Last week came the results but this week the oil majors are pivoting into the PR push by investors and outside influencers. We’ve covered multiple times that I see the oil majors are looking at electricity as a transportation fuel replacement and will be getting into the generation, transmission, trading and retail sale. This marks the start of the future competition between utilities, IPPs and oil majors.
It’s Real. In case you wanted to know if storage markets were expanding, they are and they will continue to grow.
Soft Costs. It’s shaping up to be a big summer for soft cost reduction with the launch of SolarAPP and with continued innovation from the leading solar software companies. OpenSolar, today announced a partnership with the largest US design and engineering firm GreenLancer, connecting OpenSolar’s highly regarded 3D design and sales toolkit with the on-demand planset generation service reportedly used by over 5,000 contractors. With OpenSolar bringing experience from its users in over 100 countries, Birchy and the new US team I know are focused on supporting US installers to drive down costs (Australia remember is at $1.10 per W residential cost all in, with 25% solar penetration). They launched their ‘Opportunity Wide Open’ summer series today, in which they’ll share a range of resources and tips to help solar contractors reduce cost and scale. There will be a lot of approaches but good to see partnerships in technology creating savings for the solar community.
- PV-Magazine: First Solar to add 3.3 GW of capacity in a new $680 million Ohio factory
- Axios: Shell vows faster climate push after Dutch court ruling
- New York Times: Exxon’s Board Defeat Signals the Rise of Social-Good Activists
- Energy Storage News: Wood Mackenzie – US could be a 12GWh energy storage market in 2021
- Reuters: Clean energy investment needed to avert emissions surge in developing world, says IEA
- Utility Dive: ‘Private industry can’t do it alone’ – Lessons for electric utilities from the Colonial ransomware fallout
- Solar Power World: Five regional solar installers combine to form new company Lumio
- Canary Media: Biden admin aims to make the US a world leader in lithium-ion batteries
Opinion
Best, Yann