Here’s The Scoop. There’s something big brewing in the residential solar market. SolarWakeup has learned that industry veterans are coming back into the market in a big way, looking to to build the next national platform through acquisitions of existing market leaders. With the fragmentation that exists today, it makes sense that this would be the strategy and for those companies that seek that exponential growth it seems that the opportunity is coming up. We can’t say more at this point but stay tuned to this space…
An Expanding Market. Even with the impacts of COVID in the space, halting installations and changing sales strategies, the residential solar market is now forecasted to remain strong. After my comments were published by PV-Magazine about the finance market faltering, Woodmac responded and changed the terminology to indicate a strong investment environment for residential solar. The forecasters also increased the 2020 estimates by 700MW to remain flat year over year. This was something SolarWakeup predicted in May on our podcast episode. Even if megawatts will remain flat, SolarWakeup has the estimate at 10-15% increase over 2019 numbers, total spend will be up over 10% given the average system value has increased by almost 15% due to bigger systems and energy storage inclusion. You can now understand what drives the investment thesis in the scoop above.
500+ Air Quality. 6 of the largest fires in California, including the largest ever, are burning right now. Oregon saw fires within 20 miles of populated areas around Portland and the impacts of the fires are dramatic. Air quality measurements are reaching very unhealthy levels, over 600 AQI in some areas. At 500 AQI, you need to consider wearing heavily filtered masks inside your home at all times. We don’t know what this means for long term health but this is definitely not a positive sign of things to come.
Let’s Have Solutions. As I read about Gaval family in Pennsylvania, I think about how the solar industry can be a home for them. We are all thinking about how companies operate with more remote work, I’d love to see the idea of distributed offices instead of larger facilities in metros. Imagine a 20 person office in Mahanoy City, a coal mining town where the Gavals live. The solar industry is advocating for distributed energy, why couldn’t we also distribute our workforce in a similar way.
New Products, Lower Prices. The SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group has been hard at work to improve the product and price list over the past few weeks. If you haven’t talked with us about it, send us a note or do a price discovery.
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Yann
Head Into The Weekend. We are going to put a bow on Q3 this month and head into Q4 with the biggest backlog and solar development pipeline in the history of solar. Here are your top news for the week.
Baseload To ELCC. You should go back and read the LA Times interview with the head of CAISO that talks about the impact of the energy transition and what’s real or not. In the discussion about going to 100% renewables there are lessons that will be learned and one will be that we need to look at reserve margins and resource adequacy. Those two factors, especially local RA and local capacity will be key in execution a reliable renewable grid.
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Yann
Seeing Red. Pictures out of the Bay Area were daunting yesterday, not reminding me of my home for the past 2 years. This is the planet’s reminder that whether we believe in climate change or not, it’s here and we need to do more. It was enough to get Obama to tweet about the fires yesterday.
Deals Galore. Let’s go around the horn on yesterday’s deals and moves. First Solar will be selling series 6 modules into the DG market, focusing on the C&I segment. BayWa acquired northern California’s Enable-Energy. Terabase raised $6million in their series A while Sunfolding raised $32mm in their series B.
NYISO Question. On Tuesday, NYISO announced it would let energy storage fully participate in the wholesale markets. More than one of you are experts in this so I want to hear from you, does this help solar? What segment? Is this as big of a deal as the reporting makes it seem?
The Mid-Market. I spent some time going through Ohm Analytics’ permit data yesterday, growing markets everywhere. I’ve always had my own leaderboard for residential installers that do more than 1,000 systems per year and now the 2,000 system club seems to be picking up. There are others out there that tend to miss the headlines of SPW and maybe be outside of dense locations. Who are the fastest growing installers I’ve never heard from? If you’re one of these companies, I want to learn more about how you got there.
Join The Buyer’s Group. SolarWakeup is hiring inside sales reps for the Buyer’s Group, with our initial traction we are growing to do even more. Email your resume or reach out if interested. Installers can fill out the price discovery and get a 1-week trial if you email me to request one.
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Yann
‘Green’ Transport. Uber announced that it was following Lyft into 100% electric vehicles by 2030 and carbon goals a few years later. For drivers that have an electric vehicle, Uber will pay them an extra $1.50 per ride as an incentive as part of a $800million push to enable drivers to make the switch. I’m sure this will also include a riders option to request a ‘green’ ride maybe for an extra fee to urge the demand to come along. For new readers wondering why we cover electric vehicle adoption, especially at this scale, it’s because it changes the demand for solar. As grid demand increases due to oil to electric shift in transportation, solar will make up a significant portion of that gap.
The Pipeline. In the next few years there will be a great understanding of the enormous pipeline that solar and storage has built in interconnection applications. Overnight, gigawatts of solar and storage could be built for less than 5 cents per kWh in almost every market across the Country. That optionality, when grid operators understand the magnitude, should be explained to lawmakers in greater detail especially as folks urge the risks of a new energy system by shouting ‘look at California’ every opportunity they can. How many GW of interconnection applications are viable across the Country?
Deployment Not Tech. I’ve never heard the term technology gap before but the sentiment remains the same. By focusing the lawmakers and regulators on research and development as opposed to mass deployment, you delay the actual success of the plan to achieve certain goals. R&D is vital and needs to continue including at greater levels, but the way to get to cheaper solar plus storage and great innovation on efficiencies is through scale. That’s how we went from 200watt to 350watt solar modules from $4/watt to $0.40/watt in less than 15 years. Utilities saying that we can’t get to goals without a leap in tech are hoping for a few more quarters of rate base, just look at Dominion’s request to get an 80 year extension on a nuclear plant.
Revisit Shareholder Pressure. GTM has a good story looking back on Blackrock’s climate push as shareholders. This includes the notice it put many corporations on that were falling behind on reaching climate goals or moving into a more sustainable direction.
Join The Buyer’s Group. Residential installers should be taking advantage of the 20%+ savings in the buyer’s group with new products added last week and more coming. You can fill out the price discovery and get a 1-week trial if you do.
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