This is your SolarWakeup for March 19th

Tourney Time. Today is the Last Day! Sign up for the annual SolarWakeup March Madness Challenge. Search for SolarWakeup 2026 on ESPN TC or create your bracket for Women’s and Men’s tournament challenges here, password is gosolar. Winner gets bragging rights and the morning paragraph on a topic of their choice. 

Onsite Batteries And Investigations. It is no surprise to me that data centers are bringing batteries for backup, for interconnection and for power quality to the inside of the fence at the data centers. Cells are simply too power hungry for typical instant backup. The interesting part of that is how it relates to local content, FEOC and the ongoing OICTS investigation about foreign influence into the grid and related parts. For solar that seems to be largely centered around inverters but for storage it likely impacts domestic sources of BMS and EMS software. This is often overlooked but more importantly the likelihood that cybersecurity is coming to this is largely ignored, for now, especially when storage goes behind the meter at data centers. 

Opinion

Best, Yann