It’s Cold Out There. Unless you were within a few miles of me in South Florida, you were wearing a sweater this weekend. I won’t rub it in but we had a cozy 85 degrees for the long weekend. Cold weather, especially where it is normally not expected, causes major pain in grid operations. You saw that Texas, with power plants coming off line and wind turbines needing to be deiced to continue turning, reached its peak power price of $9,000/MWh. Demand not only exceeded forecasts many times over but also happened simultaneously across major metro areas. Grid geeks debated the pros and cons of capacity markets, like PJM versus ERCOT, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the arbitrage opportunity between peaks for energy storage asset owners that were not contracted ahead of time.
A Central Grid, Decentralized. Two former state regulators including Sunrun’s VP of Policy, Anne Hoskins, write that it is shortsighted for regulators and grid planners to not proceed with major enhancements to the way distributed energy resources are dispatched and monetized. Look at the situation in Texas, if DERs had been included in the analysis and grid operations, the peak demand could have been shaved to some degree even though Texas is just getting started. California on the other hand, with over 1 million solar roofs plus a plan to get to a million solar with storage roofs can dramatically impact grid peaks. The dispatch ability for planners doesn’t come without a cost, it competes with other peaking or near peaking capacity but isn’t looked at by regulators as a solid asset just yet. California regulators are letting monopolies double down on peaking generation capacity contracts and more fossil fuel generators as a way to manage peak. But the CAISO CEO said it best once, we cannot simply manage peaks, we must also shape demand.
Gates Writes Book. Bill Gates has a new book about the energy transition, “How to avoid a climate disaster?” The CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute reviews the book and politico publishes an interview with Gates.
C&I PPA Webinar. My C&I solar friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) are hosting an exciting free webinar for EPCs and Installers on Feb 24th, demonstrating how their software users were able to improve PPA project conversions by 25% or more. Learn best practices in executing C&I solar & storage PPAs, helpful strategies for a remote sales process, industry insights, and more. You can sign up here or contact the SCF team at info@scf.com for more information.
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Yann
The News Business. Former GTM Editor in Chief, Eric Wesoff, reports that Wood Mackenzie is shutting down greentechmedia.com and the GTM squared subscription portal. WoodMac acquired GTM for $40million in 2016 which also included the strong research and event business units which are going to continue. The decision to shutter the site has caused many to recount how GTM shaped the news in solar over the past decade plus but I am more concerned about what this means to the industry from a news coverage standpoint. We need strong and amplified coverage of the industry, not just for outsiders but for each and everyone of you to keep track on who’s doing what and what comes next. There are a few sites still operating and they need to be supported but we need to find ways to expand coverage and reporting in a sustainable and profitable way. SolarWakeup exists because I have a day job, I have published over 2,700 newsletters over the past 8 years and most of that time I had a job that paid my bills so I know how hard it is to actually do the news for a living. I’m rooting for the remaining journalists at GTM and I’m open to ideas that help and support them or the expansion of journalists in the space. GTM has been a staple for all of us in getting the story out, I’ll be sad to see it go away.
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A 2010 Build. In 2010, CPS built a new coal plant and now they want customers to decide whether that plant should be shut down. I assume that during the public hearings pre-construction, someone said that coal wasn’t a good idea and the 30 year life expectancy is a fallacy. Now CPS wants to CYA by their customers.
Instant Permitting. Santa Barbara understands that when you want more solar on roofs, you cut the proverbial red tape. On demand permitting is now coming to a building department near you. You recall, as we’ve stated many times before on SolarWakeup, that permitting cost reductions are the best way to lower the cost of solar for homeowners. Listen to OpenSolar’s Andrew Birch talk about it on the Freeing Energy podcast.
Unlimited Money, Limited Pipeline. Macquarie adds another $2billion in announced capital for renewable energy infrastructure investment. The key is more around the types of projects that infra groups are willing to fund and how they gain their pipelines. Every good project gets funded, at least that was possible in a world where we didn’t have to do deals via zoom. On the other hand Macquarie has a history in doing deals that others won’t, like a storage aggregation in Walmarts 5 years ago early.
Margin Focused, Always. Enphase released Q4 earnings on Tuesday and they beat on revenue and margin. While the company is growing their services to installers through acquisition they are also investing in major R&D on their product roadmap. Both of those, if executed, will likely grow the margin for the company even better than the 40% they are at now.
Demand Grows, Then Grows Again. What happens when every home has an EV in the driveway or two? And every bus on the road goes electric as well? Fleet conversion is also going to happen much faster than anyone expects. All of that extra demand, at the end of the distribution lines, is going be a major added variable for grid operators.
Find A Vehicle. Congress needs a vehicle to pass items in their environmental agenda, like the ITC expansion and extension or environmental justice laws. COVID or infrastructure vehicles are pending this year and could be tagged as a possible vehicle.
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