Bracketology. The most important SolarWakeup day of the year is here, time to join this year’s March Madness bracket. As always, the winning bracket gets to write the column for a day. So head to ESPN Fantasy and look for the ‘SolarWakeup 2021’ group and use password solar to join. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join the fun.
Farewell GTM. Emma Foehringer Merchant and Julian Spector post their last GTM articles. The end is really here.
Kerry Documents Inside Baseball. GM is hiring EV lobbyists and John Kerry is asking Wall Street to leverage their PR teams to advance climate talking points. Inside baseball is coming to the ClimateTech markets.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Yann
Bracketology. The most important SolarWakeup day of the year is here, time to join this year’s March Madness bracket. As always, the winning bracket gets to write the column for a day. So head to ESPN Fantasy and look for the ‘SolarWakeup 2021’ group and use password solar to join. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join the fun.
Farewell GTM. Jeff St. John has been writing for GTM since 2008 and he takes the pen to bid farewell. Like many of you, my journey in solar and now storage has run alongside that of GTM. With each step in my career hoping for a new mention on the news site and it was no different in my latest career move. GTM has been the leading insider platform for the better part of the decade and will be missed. I can’t wait to see where the current journalists land and who steps into the void left in the market.
All Eyes On ClimateTech. Energy Impact Partners has a ClimateTech index which has been outperforming the broader tech market. ClimateTech is a broad category in the index but let’s look at the next iteration which will create the next trillion dollar company. ClimateTech is the nexus where hardware and software meet to solve really important climate problems. That nexus allows for the scalability to manage enormous problems and turn them into opportunities.
Do More Infra. The headlines around an infrastructure bill are good on all sides of the argument. Utilities are asking for it, unions and contractors are for it, engineers and generators are begging for it and polling says that voters of both parties love it. So how does it actually get done? Bipartisan support has become a DC problem too hard to solve because there is no attack ad in a win-win policy.
The State By State. The weakness in the infrastructure exposed Texas to over $130billion in lost economic output during the winter storm. Some areas of Mississippi are still without water. Every State is now grappling with how their infrastructure compares and what the priority list looks like. Even if the national infrastructure plan passes, States are still the individual markets that enable their goals or slow them down.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Yann
Today’s Takeaway. As you head into the weekend and read today’s top stories, I want you to think about the fundamental shift in our industry. For the past 15 years we have been focused on signing long term off take agreements in order to build solar generation, this has been one of the hardest and determining factors in development. Given solar produces energy when the sun shines, this is the bedrock of making the financial model work. Over the next 10 years, our industry will shift into a more complex but financially advantaged position where energy is part of the system and trading that energy drives the financial model. Read between the lines of what BP is saying and Google is planning for, it’s clear as day what this looks like in 5 years.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
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Yann
The Software Imperative. We will get into this more in the future but important note to you today as it’s covered in the top article. As solar gets more involved in grid services, virtual power plants, and energy trading, it also gets closer to grid operations. For grid operations, many of the fleet management functions are digital/software focused but they also need to meet regulatory compliance and ensure cybersecurity is central to the function. Solar plus storage plants also have the generation functionality which makes the communication between hardware and software a central function that is hard to find when the experience is not deep given the newness of the market.
Perpetual Interconnect. When the power plant has a perpetual interconnect and opportunity to extend site leases, what happens to the power plant over time? Can you adjust the modules? Will the utility allow for new inverters or even upsizing? What about adding DC or AC-coupled energy storage? All of those revenue opportunities could prove to be a secondary market for existing projects.
Regan To EPA. Congratulations to the new EPA administrator, Michael Regan.
A Product Showcase. In two weeks, join CALSSA and the dozens of manufacturers in a product showcase. This is a free event if you register in advance, you can do that here. Absent in-person events and a desire to stay in front of a computer all day, CALSSA brings you the best way to learn about the latest and greatest.
Opinion
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Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann