Get Into ITC Game. Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee introduced the GREEN Act as a part of the $1.5 trillion House infrastructure package. The bill, which is expected to pass this week in the House, would push out deadlines for the Solar Investment Tax Credit and provide a direct payment option in lieu of the ITC. And now it’s time for you to take action. A strong grassroots push now can make a difference in solar’s ability to get pro-solar provisions added to bipartisan COVID-19 recovery legislation. Many of you operate in districts and
Les Nelson Memorial. Please join NABCEP and CALSSA for a virtual memorial celebrating Les Nelson. As you know, Les played a pivotal role in the solar industry, volunteering his time and providing valuable guidance on many industry boards. On July 1st, please take a moment to remember him. Details are here.
Value Of Net Metering. It’s been sometime since we had a big and public fight on net metering. Over the years we’ve had value of solar studies and this one from Michigan shows once again that ratepayers benefit from their neighbors putting solar on their roof. The reality is that net metering is a benefit to all consumers and the solar industry is perfectly fine with the simplicity of one to one credit on the production. On the other hand, simplicity has always been the attribute that opponents of solar hate the most since it doesn’t confuse consumers. This may be a year that ‘net metering is a subsidy’ debate comes back, stay tuned. Careful to all my utility readers though, messing with net metering will only serve to expand and increase the adoption of storage, accelerating the loss of consumers to the rate base.
The Corporate Market. Yesterday there was a story about a 500MW buyer in Europe looking for assets and today Bank of America does a deal with NRG. Neither of these two things really gets me excited. What really needs to happen is 200 1MW customers getting together to do a deal. There should be so many off takers in the market that no developer has to ask “how will I get an offtaker for this project?”. Even better would be that the competition over projects drives the value of energy generation up in price instead of this never ending race to the bottom because the project must have someone on the other end of it.
A Favor. You know this year is hard on groups working on your behalf. CALSSA is trying to offset losses to revenue and we’re falling behind in the silent auction. Please help us raise another $10,000 by placing a bid right now. This is money well spent at your business. Furthermore, if you’re not a member, please join. If you are a member, please contact Carter at CALSSA to join the President’s circle. All of these business expenses are offset by your reduced travel and trade show budgets and our work at the Capitol hasn’t reduced.
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Yann
Clean Energy For Biden. You can now support Joe Biden’s campaign on behalf of the SolarWakeup community. I was involved in Cleantech For Obama and this marks another moment when the solar industry can get behind the former Vice President. Join me by donating here.
Grid Electrification. Much news was made this weekend when PG&E came out in support of electrifying new construction in California. This may be news in the literal sense but it’s not for climate reasons. Electrification is a monetization strategy for a bankrupt monopoly. The gas pipelines have been a giant liability for the utility and there is little additional rate base in that market. Electrifying, especially in dense geographies means more infrastructure that needs to be upgraded.
Actions Will Prove My Comment. If you listen to my interview with Nick Chaset, CEO of East Bay Community Energy, you will hear about the complicated relationship between the CCAs and the IOUs. Especially as it comes to the important local resource adequacy procurement, CCAs have lost their control on what projects get greenlit. With the new central procurement process, local storage, demand response and microgrids can’t get paid for local RA unless PG&E and SCE say yes. While you’re there, please rate and review the podcast. You can do this even if you don’t listen to it, as a favor to me.
Utilities And SPI. Not to belabor the point but since SPI is happening this year and is going to be down in revenue quite a bit, I will remind you that half of the profits from the show go to SEIA and the other half go to SEPA. SEPA, which doesn’t have the word solar in it, has launched SEPA TV. So if you want to know what SEPA stands for at this moment in time, you’ll get to hear executives from APS, NYPA, Xcel, Edison International, PSEG and PNM.
Debt Gets Fracked. Chesapeake Energy has filed for bankruptcy protection, to restructure $7billion in debt. By no means does this mean they’re going out of business, they just want to pay their bond holders less for the debt continuing the trend of losing money for shale investors.
Just Because. Trump’s Twitter account had the word Solyndra in two separate tweets this weekend. I thought ‘scandals’ in the scale of millions was behind us at this point. Also, we can’t blame Obama for the Bush deal and the loan program was profitable.
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Yann
Friday Funday. Another great week as we wrap up Q2, cross it off your calendar and go into Q3 without anymore excuses. Drop ‘in these times’ ‘because of corona’ from your vocabulary and do your work. Everyone is in a similar situation, just get it done. No more column today, have a great weekend.
Virtual Power Podcast. Check out the latest episode of SolarWakeup Podcast as I interview East Bay Community Energy’s CEO Nick Chaset. We talk about CCAs, CPUC’s ruling and the future of virtual power plants.
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Yann
Shale Revolution Was A Loser. The shale gas revolution was supposed to be something special, lots of money being made and littered around. According to a Deloitte report the reality is the total opposite and the numbers are staggering. Over the past 15 years, the US shale industry has returned $300billion in negative cash flow and impaired $450billion in invested capital.
Climate Change Polls Improve. In the latest Pew research on climate change, results continue to show that our industry and the broader clean energy space has excellent bipartisan support. That support is greater than 80% on most issues when you remove conservative republicans from the analysis. Invest more in ‘alternative energy’ is 81%-97% and the big winner is planting a trillion trees which polled at over 87% for all political groups. At the end of the day the polling is much better on the solution than the issue.
Young People Know. The GOP has an internal generational problem on the issue of climate change and renewable energy. Boomers support renewable energy at 55% versus the millennials at 79%. You may be surprised to know that there are republicans working in solar and they tend to be my age or younger. That’s the upside of solar, it’s fundamentally a bipartisan issue. You can support it for a variety of reasons that align with your ideology.
Revenue Stacking Goes Distributed. It was a recent switch that went off in my mind but virtual power plants are a huge new segment for our market. Batteries will not just be there for homeowners that are looking to shift energy consumption or to have backup power. Owners of storage will be able to monetize by partnering with load service entities just like East Bay Clean Energy did for their pilot program. Keep your eyes on this space, I’m intrigued.
SEBANE Annual Awards. Join SEBANE for our Third Annual Summer Solstice Celebration and Awards Event, being held virtually today. The Summer Solstice and Awards Celebration will feature remarks from SEBANE President Mark Sylvia, public officials, and industry stakeholders, will include a virtual happy hour.
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Yann