SolarWakeup 3.0. 2 years ago I joined the residential solar market and it changed my view on everything. Armed with a great product and a strategy to talk to every solar installer in the Country, the conversations began. Since leaving Quick Mount in May, it has been my absolute focus to eliminate as much margin stacking and inefficiency levied on the residential solar installer. From the factory to the customer’s rooftop, products can double in cost due to those inefficiency. Most importantly, installers do not have a clear view of what they are paying for. Rebates, transportation, logistics, credit terms, margins all make up some of that cost. Some installers pay 50% more for a product just because. Let me be very clear, this week you will hear exactly how tenacious and resilient solar installers are across the Country. We all play our part in putting solar on every rooftop in America and together we will make it a mature, transparent and efficient market.
The SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. Not all installers buy 200MW of product per year, most don’t and shouldn’t. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have the ability to buy product competitively without markups for things they don’t need, namely logistics and credit. The SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group is a group purchasing cooperative that will provide access to installers to some of the most commonly used products at pricing that matches the scale of a top 10 installer. By this time next year I expect the buyer’s group to be the largest single block of purchasing in residential solar. As the Buyer’s Group grows, installers will benefit from each other driving the price down and expanding the product portfolio. Group purchasing organizations are active in many other industries and my expectation is that we can work together to create a sustainable purchasing community in solar as well. You can join the group online or if you want to have a conversation, hit reply to this email.
A Community Project. The Buyer’s Group is born out of the community we’ve created over the past 8 years. Your support, ideas and feedback have made this a better product for the solar market. Stay tuned for more to come.
Earnings Season. SolarEdge posted better than expected earnings results beating the street’s estimates by a healthy amount. The headline of the earnings is that Q2 2020 for solar products was up 1% from Q2 2019. Pause for a moment to realize that solar is up year over year in a quarter entirely consumed by COVID related issues. Full earnings slides. Enphase reports tomorrow after market close.
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Yann
Venture Ventures. GE Ventures is continuing to divest its portfolio, with the latest deal selling GE’s shares in 11 startups to 40 North Ventures. This story has two points of relevance for our industry. First, some of the companies are in clean energy including Enbala, Volta and Proterra. Second, 40 North Ventures is part of Standard Industries which owns GAF and GAF Energy. GAF Energy is the roof integrated solar product that spun out from GAF last year but has been internally built at GAF for a decade.
VP Portfolio. Every VP list coming from DC pundits has Senator Harris at the top of the list. Typically, from a strategic standpoint, a vice presidential nominee with legislative power would put forth new bills that bolster issues relevant to the campaign. Senator Harris is about to introduce environmental justice legislation. This isn’t the first time, 15 years ago as the San Francisco District Attorney, Harris pursued environmental crimes that disproportionately targeted poor communities. The bridge between climate change, income inequality and fossil fuel generators exists and Senator Harris, potentially as VP candidate, will be making that case nationally.
2 Out Of 50. Bribery charges in Ohio and Illinois largely hasn’t surprised most in solar advocacy, maybe the scale of it, but we’ve all seen how utilities maneuver the legislative limbo. The New York Times comes in with a well written documentation that makes the issue understandable by those outside of the industry. The NY Times asks for opposing views, which will be interesting to read if they come out. The real story that I hope get picked up is that this is happening in every State. Each instance may differ in degree but with the right investigative budget, the New York Times would find dozens of reportable cases. Even better, the New York Times should hire Energy and Policy Institute to do the investigation.
Arizona RPS Laughs. A regulatory body that seemed aligned to increase the RPS in Arizona ended up closing the proceedings rather abruptly when a difference of opinion of how to proceed became apparent. Twitter had some fun with this one but I’ll leave you with the coverage. Let’s see if the regulators have their staff coordinate and come back with good news.
It’s Kentucky. 50MW PPA signed in Kentucky, if Kentucky wants more of that in the future residents can call their senior senator and ask for the ITC to be included in the stimulus package.
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Yann
Weekend Vibes. Happy Friday and end of July. Here’s your rundown and fast feedback on today’s news in solar.
Support Energy News. EPA doesn’t like the coverage they are getting from E&E News and canceled their subscription. If you can, support E&E by subscribing. They used to have a fantastic TV studio that I’d love to host SolarWakeup TV in. In the meantime, solar should make a deal with coal plants across the Country, shut down the coal plant and replace it with solar plus storage and use the savings to clean up the site and help with job training of the displaced employees.
Virtual Power Plant Contracts. A month ago, if you listened to the SolarWakeup podcast, we had this story in my conversation with Nick Chaset from East Bay Community Energy. This is another virtual power plant using local resources. This type of project will become harder to do in the future based on the decision by the CPUC to take local resource adequacy responsibility off the hands of CCAs and giving it to PG&E and SCE.
Home Electrification. In a double newsday keeping my PR friends busy, Sunrun signed a JV with SK E&S, a Korean conglomerate. Each company will contribute $75million to a joint venture aimed at home electrification, which will be interesting to watch and understand what that means. SK E&S will also buy $75million worth of Sunrun shares at $36 per share.
Earnings Season. Sunnova beat and reaffirmed guidance for the year. Generac is predicting positive cash flow in clean energy in 2020. Next week we get Enphase and Solaredge. In case you missed it, listen to the Generac earnings call and you’ll get a look at how a CEO should handle an earnings call. It was a easy flowing conversation off the cuff without talking points and scripts. Solar companies should take note.
Utilities As Public Good. Utilities get monopoly status because they have a public responsibility, a responsibility to serve. This has been hijacked by shareholder desire for growth and dividends. First Energy is not out of the woods as 5 people get indicted by an Ohio grand jury including the Ohio Speaker of the House. It shows how far utilities are willing to go to get what they want from politicians and regulators. It seems beyond potential to rectify the situation but let’s hope it can be done.
CPV Project Goes Bust. A SolarReserve project has gone bust and a DOE loan guarantee will lose a little over $200million. Digging into PR talking points from 5 years ago, here is what the SolarReserve CEO had to say about the future of CPV at the time “We can’t power the planet with rooftop solar and the case for developing CSP when PV is cheaper.” I think rooftop solar won.
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Yann
No Column. Catch up on this week’s podcast about virtual batteries with the CEO of Extensible Energy. You can find it on your favorite platforms.
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Yann