Solar Access Requires Regulators. Anti-solar advocates often attach solar for helping the rich only and not democratizing the benefits to everyone. This is especially aimed at low-income residents or renters that may not be the typical single family solar customer. The responsibility for this disparity mostly falls on regulators that do not open the market to all property types. Tools like community solar easily solves this, like is has done successfully in several markets. More importantly, regulators could take a new look at the excess production rate which is well below market value for energy costs. The problem with solar financing is the requirement for long term contracts secured by appropriate credit. For low-income or renters, it doesn’t match the solar financing. If regulators had a backup energy rate in case of default or vacancy, more competition over that market would follow.
The Work On Climate. Since it’s often lost on us that we are working on a bigger issue that affects everyone, I thought I would share an interesting realization I had over the weekend. Climate change sometimes seems too big for us to impact, what could one of us possibly do to help. The impacts from climate are serious and we have all felt them over the past few years. But, a few months ago when the national shelter in place was happening, we saw how fast the climate can change in a positive direction. We don’t have to believe a thesis, no cars on the road gave us the cleanest air we’ve seen in decades. We are so close to having a grid without coal and vehicle electrification on the way, it is possible that we will see immediate impacts from the positive gains our industries are making.
The Price And Compensation Signal. Grid operators and utility executives manage their work based on signals. Grid operators look at reserve margins within generation to match demand forecasts while utility executives look at the share price. On the technical side, we’re realizing that we cannot manage a grid only on the generation side, our reserve margin through demand shaping and demand response needs to be much closer to 20% or more. Same goes for executives, regulators have the opportunity to hold them to their climate goals and tie rate of return to achieving the decarbonization that is needed. If the utility profits drop when they fail to meet climate goals, executives will lose money because the share price will drop.
Diversity In Solar. Solar CEOs from several prominent companies are looking to improve the diversity in solar. The CEO collective has written the note linked below outlining their thoughts and actions.
Get The Power. Later this year, the residential solar market is going to get some major savings with most of their balance of systems when the shift to higher power solar modules really gets going. With power density going up more than 10%, those savings will trickle down to mounts, rails, inverters, labor and wire and hopefully into installers’ wallets. Make sure you are getting the best modules and pricing possible by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. You can see the pricing on our price discovery page.
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Yann
Trump Still Anti-Solar. On Saturday, the White House released a proclamation signed by Trump (now we know what he signed at Walter Reed) pushing for the bifacial tariff exemption to be eliminated. He also called for the 201 tariff drop to not go to 15% but 18% instead. Taxing Americans access to solar continues to be his priority.
OakTree Shaking IPO Foliage. With Array Technologies about to have a monster IPO, it won’t be long before the best exhibitor at solar conferences, Shoals, follows suit. Take it from me, widgets have great margins. From racking to wire accessories, this part of the BOS ecosystem is ripe for investors.
Vehicle To Grid Auf Deutsch. In a German article, follow the twitter thread here to read the original article, the head of Volkswagen’s charging division talks about electrification and vehicle to grid capabilities in the future. In a DC coupled architecture, you could see a cable from the car to the stationary energy storage already installed at the home.
The Subsidy Of Crappy Deals. In a new analysis, MISO shows that uneconomic coal power plants ‘lost’ over $400million in a 4 year window. Lost is a big word, because it’s really a subsidy. Add this to the long list of subsidies that generators, utilities and incumbents have received when solar plus storage is already economically viable.
Laudato Si, Iterum. You may recall the Pope’s Laudato Si from several years ago. The Pope is once again calling for action on climate change. You could see Joe Biden, a practicing catholic, echo those words to make the case on this basis as well.
The Michigan Farmer. Last week’s news that Biden was releasing a climate change ad in Michigan is out. This has the potential to get traction in other states, like Iowa and North Carolina for example.
Energy Storage Gold. Check out these ERCOT market prices from this weekend, energy storage operators are paying their bills.
Bad Solar TikTok Dance. Now there is a solar TikTok. In this video, a man escapes a collapsing roof and you should watch til the end to discover the likely issue here.
Get The Power. Later this year, the residential solar market is going to get some major savings with most of their balance of systems when the shift to higher power solar modules really gets going. With power density going up more than 10%, those savings will trickle down to mounts, rails, inverters, labor and wire and hopefully into installers’ wallets. Make sure you are getting the best modules and pricing possible by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. You can see the pricing on our price discovery page.
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Yann
VSLR RUNs Away. Vivint Solar officially stopped trading yesterday and owners of VSLR shares will see RUN shares in their portfolio instead. This makes the acquisition official after a near unanimous approval by shareholders. If the future is a debate of central versus distributed, monopolies versus deregulation, then Sunrun will be distributed utility fighting the 20th century behemoths.
Tracking Big IPOs. Array Technologies S-1 filing has been revised and the company has increased its capital raise to $675mm from the initial plug in number of $100mm. This makes the case that the virtual roadshow has gone well, with the IPO banks able to upside it to over $800million. Array has $92million in EBITDA in the first 6 months of 2020, 87% of their revenue coming from the US and the company is principally manufacturing in the US. Oaktree is a major investor in the company after an investment in 2016. S-1 Filing
The Veepstakes. A prolonged section in the VP debate about climate change had some wondering what they were watching. While the climate echochamber on Twitter wants to either, stop arguing whether climate change is real or complain that Senator Harris didn’t dig into the Green New Deal or state that the Biden admin will ban fracking. I will remind everyone once again, politicians can’t do anything until they are in power. If they feel like they need to straddle the middle to satisfy a voter in Pennsylvania, then they will. It was crazy to see VP Pence talk about the Trump administration’s environmental record, the list of deregulated pollutants during the last 3 years, the MOPR, solar tariffs and more make the case for this being an environmental disastrous administration.
MNSEIA Roundtable. The Minnesota Chapter is hosting an important roundtable with other state chapters and SEIA. Click the image above to register for the event being held next week during their two day gateway event.
Get The Power. Later this year, the residential solar market is going to get some major savings with most of their balance of systems when the shift to higher power solar modules really gets going. With power density going up more than 10%, those savings will trickle down to mounts, rails, inverters, labor and wire and hopefully into installers’ wallets. Make sure you are getting the best modules and pricing possible by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. You can see the pricing on our price discovery page.
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Yann
Happy Birthday. 9 years and 1 month ago, my wife told me I should start a solar newsletter that talks about the previous day's top stories. For the past 9 years she mostly regrets that (I'm joking). Well it's my wife's birthday today and I'm thankful for her push and support in this and many of our adventures in the solar coaster.
Cleantech Journalists. A must see for business leaders and PR pros. Today I join other clean tech editors to talk about issues we are looking at and the best way to get your story in the news. Register here.
Congrats. Personal message of congratulations to the CALSSA Board President, Ed Murray. Yesterday, he announced that his Aztec Solar was being acquired by East Coast’s Sigora Solar. If you listened to the capital market update calls, I predicted that regional installer consolidation was on the way. Way to go Ed!
Policy Moves. Just in time for distributed solar’s time to shine, policy pro Walker Wright is returning to Sunrun as VP of Public Policy. Walker is a rockstar advocate, one of the fiercest defender of solar regulations in the Country and knows how to duke it out, whether in the halls of the Capitol or back room at the smoky steakhouse.
Situational Awareness. In a tweet exchange, PG&E board member doesn’t remember the last time his company made a move to kill net metering. I reminded him.
Yann On A Pod. I joined Tim Montague to talk about solar markets and the Buyer’s Group on his youtube based podcast. It was a great conversation.
Get The Power. Later this year, the residential solar market is going to get some major savings with most of their balance of systems when the shift to higher power solar modules really gets going. With power density going up more than 10%, those savings will trickle down to mounts, rails, inverters, labor and wire and hopefully into installers’ wallets. Make sure you are getting the best modules and pricing possible by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. You can see the pricing on our price discovery page.
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Have a great day!
Yann