F-150 Release Success. Here are some reasons why the F-150 release is a success and why it’s important for our industry. It still looks like a truck with the advantages of an EV with acceleration and range. It also gives truck owners their first truck without giving up the bed because the frunk is created. The Lightning will also have an onboard generator for all those working men and women powering tools on construction sites. For folks like me, we’ll pretend to go camping and tailgating. This is exactly the opposite of the EV1, you get all the benefits of an EV without sacrificing what you like about the truck and normalizing electrification makes you want to own this. $100 to reserve yours today, paying to join a marketing list is the new customer acquisition tactic!
V2G Activated, Solarized. But wait, there’s more. Ford is including a feature called intelligent backup power, a feature that will allow you to use the truck as a battery for your home. They have productized vehicles to grid or home in this case. The solar overlap is that Sunrun announced last night that it has been chosen as the preferred installer for Ford Intelligent Backup Power. With a battery bank expected to be in the 120kWh range for the extended range model (300 miles), this has energy use ramifications a bit beyond anyone was expecting from a car company. I’ll be realistic here that this isn’t real V2G since it assumes a disconnect from the grid has occurred, islanding the home, and therefore regulatory policy could be limited but surely regulators are wondering how else this could be used. Charge the car at night, island the house during peak times, and then do it all again? What about the warranty on the car? You can also charge the truck on commercial rates and offset residential charges perhaps? I’m intrigued and I like the auto OEM / utility legislative battle that this promotes. Get the popcorn!
How To Sell It. Ford is reserving the trucks through their dealers. If the dealers don’t get real on supporting specialized sales folks and partnering with local contractors to build out the infrastructure, this is going to struggle getting out the door. I’ll hold my enthusiasm for this.
And The Gas Tax? EVs are great and I think every car should be electric. How will we pay for the roads with the lost gas tax revenue? Ponder that with Secretary Pete.
Black Solar Professionals Database.The Society of Black Solar Professionals and Black Owners of Solar Services invite you to fill out this 5 minute survey. With this information we are creating an opportunity ecosystem to serve the needs of Black people in the solar space. The database formed by this information will serve as an opportunity matcher between Black people in the industry and industry opportunities (jobs, RFPs, Financing opportunities etc.) Thank you to Savannah Whitfield from Black Bear Energy for highlighting this.
PPAs For C&I Deep Dive. On May 26th, 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series analyzing solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) for Non-Profits and Municipalities, including SCF’s 8-Step PPA process. Additionally, SCF will examine a series of project case studies illustrating common challenges specific to school, non-profit and municipal projects, and requisite solutions. This webinar is recommended for anyone looking to provide solar PPAs for schools, non-profits and municipalities, as well as solar developers & installers looking to increase their knowledge on SCF's PPA solutions. Click here to sign up for this exciting, free webinar!
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US Army Posts. The military is one of the biggest energy users in the US economy and here is their Linkedin post on climate change from this week. This is inline with climate goals but also the recognition that climate change is a national security and base infrastructure issue.
F-150 Release Day. President Biden took the Lightning, F-150’s electric version, for a ride yesterday. Today, Ford is doing the official release that you can follow at this site if you so desire.
IEA’s Slim Hope. The IEA still sees a narrow path to getting to net-zero carbon by 2050. It requires the continued exponential growth of renewables and eliminating all new investments in oil and gas developments. In reality, it is likely that over the next 30 years technology shifts continue to spur capitalism’s focus on clean energy infrastructure while also halting new dollars to investments that don’t benefit from the positive trend lines. Not all governments will adopt policy that accelerates this shift but others will likely make up for it, think about it like different States taking on the issue with different philosophies.
Post Install Software. Power Factors, which recently acquired Greenbyte, has now acquired 3megawatt. 5 years ago, the ecosystem for software as a service in solar was minimal at best. In reality, investors were still making the case that solar didn’t really need very much O&M (mostly so they didn’t have to put the cost into their model). When assets end up in the hands of long term investors this shifted and not only did O&M start becoming a real market, so did the operational software that maximized the efficiency and speed of keeping assets operating at peak performance. The same correlation is coming true in storage, except for the fact that operating storage needs robust software to maximize revenue while also complying with ISO and NERC standards. We talk about storage as a pure hardware market but it’s very much a multi-billion dollar software market. Congrats to the team at 3megawatt!
Black Solar Professionals Database.The Society of Black Solar Professionals and Black Owners of Solar Services invite you to fill out this 5 minute survey. With this information we are creating an opportunity ecosystem to serve the needs of Black people in the solar space. The database formed by this information will serve as an opportunity matcher between Black people in the industry and industry opportunities (jobs, RFPs, Financing opportunities etc.) Thank you to Savannah Whitfield from Black Bear Energy for highlighting this.
PPAs For C&I Deep Dive. On May 26th, 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series analyzing solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) for Non-Profits and Municipalities, including SCF’s 8-Step PPA process. Additionally, SCF will examine a series of project case studies illustrating common challenges specific to school, non-profit and municipal projects, and requisite solutions. This webinar is recommended for anyone looking to provide solar PPAs for schools, non-profits and municipalities, as well as solar developers & installers looking to increase their knowledge on SCF's PPA solutions.Click here to sign up for this exciting, free webinar!
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Leases? Is anyone in solar still offering operating leases? Raise your hand, it seems to be one of the more common requests I get from fellow readers. Feel free to point me in the right direction as well.
Black Solar Professionals Database.The Society of Black Solar Professionals and Black Owners of Solar Services invite you to fill out this 5 minute survey. With this information we are creating an opportunity ecosystem to serve the needs of Black people in the solar space. The database formed by this information will serve as an opportunity matcher between Black people in the industry and industry opportunities (jobs, RFPs, Financing opportunities etc.)
PPAs For C&I Deep Dive. On May 26th, 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series analyzing solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) for Non-Profits and Municipalities, including SCF’s 8-Step PPA process. Additionally, SCF will examine a series of project case studies illustrating common challenges specific to school, non-profit and municipal projects, and requisite solutions. This webinar is recommended for anyone looking to provide solar PPAs for schools, non-profits and municipalities, as well as solar developers & installers looking to increase their knowledge on SCF's PPA solutions. Click here to sign up for this exciting, free webinar!
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Gas Shortage, EV Impact. Walking up to the cash register at the grocery store, the customer in front of me asked me if I had waited in line to get gas yet. I replied, no, I drive an electric car, without thinking much of it. Until I read today’s top headline, I had not considered the optionality that now exists for consumers. Gas shortage? not for EV drivers. Blackouts? not for folks with solar plus storage. Yes it’s true that there are downside scenarios for EV drivers but the decentralized nature of consumers’ self reliance and self-generation is new to the economic model.
Activism Or Capitalism. ESG investment may seem like an activism victory but I see the investment thesis to be driven by the capitalism side of the ledger. LPs may be calling out ESG reasons for capital allocation but that may be the PR benefit from doing what’s best on a risk adjusted investment. To be clearer, if owning a coal power plant had a 10%+ return opportunity with little risk, capital would still be pursuing that investment regardless of the negative ESG case. On the other hand of the spectrum, capital flowing to solar/storage/wind aren’t doing it because it’s green, but because it has a contracted cash flow that provides a market viable yield.
Generation Forecast Analysis. What happens when the Country heats up this summer and potential fire hot spots cause transmission to shutdown? Reports are saying that outages may occur. In parallel, ACORE has a report that highlights the opportunity created by investing a more dynamic grid.
No Infrastructure Solar. Equal parts sad and positive, the New York Times goes into Syria to report on the use of solar in a part of the world that has no real infrastructure after much of the Country has been torn apart.
PPAs For C&I Deep Dive. On May 26th, 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series analyzing solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) for Non-Profits and Municipalities, including SCF’s 8-Step PPA process. Additionally, SCF will examine a series of project case studies illustrating common challenges specific to school, non-profit and municipal projects, and requisite solutions. This webinar is recommended for anyone looking to provide solar PPAs for schools, non-profits and municipalities, as well as solar developers & installers looking to increase their knowledge on SCF's PPA solutions. Click here to sign up for this exciting, free webinar!
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