Adieu 2023. You’ll hear from me one more time in 2023, as I recap the storylines that will remind me of this rather strange year. So this will be the last regularly scheduled newsletter for the year and an interesting thought popped into my head as I sat down to write this. BNEF’s Nat Bullard, who started writing his weekly rundown 2 years after I did, announced today that he will be ending Sparklines after a 9 year run. NREL also used to have a newsletter that ended circa 2013. I’m not ending the SolarWakeup run, while many of you have commented that I’ve been writing less, which is true, I still enjoy getting the news out to you. Which means that SolarWakeup will continue its run as the most influential newsletter in solar (and storage). I also don’t have hundreds of thousands of subscribers (though I think I should) because this isn’t my job. Writing this newsletter is how I get better at my day job, it makes me learn every day about what is going on and then have a thought about it. This level of routine, which is not in my DNA, has forced me to take into account so many different market variables and then publicly challenge you to correct me on that view if I’m wrong. So here’s to many more rundowns and thoughts, with your job being two things. First, I hope you value this enough to tell folks that they should subscribe and second, you challenge and correct me on my views so that we can find ways to keep getting better at this.
Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.
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Yann
The 2023 Year, Your Views. It’s been a year, hasn’t it? As we put a bow on 2023, I will put some thoughts down over the weekend but before I publish that I want to hear from you. In 2022, we won the IRA battle and this year has been about the foundation of winning the win, i.e. making it work for us. What’s the one thing you’ll remember about 2023? Hit reply and let me know, your views could make it into the newsletter.
Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.
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Yann
Set It And, Set It Again. I’ve said it here before that storage makes solar more valuable and capable because the asset owner determines the time of delivery not the sunshine. That allows for the marginal value of the electron to be maximized and not commoditized, which is especially important when the grid is overproducing demand. That being said, unlike solar, which has all of its complexities determined prior to day 1, storage has capex on day 1 and works to optimize that investment every day starting on day 2. That’s where your operating system gets important, it will tell you what’s happening, how well your asset is performing and how much money you left on the table because your battery is underutilized. I’m just kidding, that’s what you’re expecting but certainly not getting in 80% of the projects out there. You’re also in for a surprise when regulators start to talk about new compliance and revenue streams that your battery needs to be updated for. That’s the basis of my chat with Andy Colthorpe from Energy-Storage News in today’s top story.
Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.
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Yann
Retirements And Growth. Last week, independent of each other, we got a report using underlying FERC data that shows nearly double the expected growth in the next five years. This is growth higher than we expected just last year. This is not inconsistent with what we’re hearing in ERCOT, data centers, electrification of the home/business and transportation. At the same time, NERC’s Long-Term Reliability Assessment (LTRA) is highlighting what NRECA calls a “grim picture” of the reliability for consumers. NREC highlights 83GW of planned retirements and 9 states that had capacity shortfalls causing rolling blackouts. They are placing MISO into a high risk for shortfalls [during normal peak] category with pretty much the rest of the Country in an elevated risk category. This is going to create some short term action that doesn’t make much sense for long term reliability or consumers but it’s clear what is needed. Maybe short term actions need to be taken, like California’s rush to add batteries, but also a view on long term policies that match where capital investment is going, i.e. energy transition and consumer pushing behavior.
Managing Installer Cash Flow. Interest rates are the highest in 22 years, increasing solar financing costs and softening consumer demand for loan products. Businesses are feeling the pain of strained cash flows, labor costs and profitability pressures. Palmetto, a B2B technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, has announced a new partnership offering for solar installers to help stabilize cash flows and grow faster in today’s market. Built on top of Palmetto’s Clean Energy Operating Platform, this is a comprehensive suite of tools and services enabling installers to streamline operations, optimize performance, and increase profitability. Visit https://www.palmetto.com/finance or contact capital@palmetto.com for more.
Opinion
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Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann