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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Yann
Power Crisis Part 2. California entered the weekend with a heat wave reaching record temperatures across the state causing grid operators to ask consumers to lower consumption as much as possible. There was no reporting about any widespread outages because Californians responded and a massive buildout of distributed generation helped the distribution networks. This isn’t how it should be done, the grid has a reserve margin and if that margin isn’t being met then the operator needs to increase the reserve threshold. Moreover, consumers shouldn’t have to be philanthropic participants to the transaction. If the grid needs their action, that should be a transaction with financial value. The utilities have the responsibility to serve and came close to failing once again, but don’t wait long to see the failure.
Heat Waves, Fires, Outages. The heat waves caused a power crisis, someone will have to do a dumb it down version on why heat waves (on weekends) cause an undersupply but I digress. About 10 minutes before I started writing this, PG&E announced it would cut power to 172,000 accounts in 22 counties due to low moisture and high temperature environment that is conducive to wild fires. How in the world is that utility still operational? It’s early September and fires are burning in large numbers, the last thing that folks should worry about is losing power in addition to all of the other concerns they are facing. The Bay Area is consumed by smoky conditions at unhealthy levels, no electricity means no circulation or worse if your health conditions require medical devices. Ratepayers in California pay some of the highest rates in the Country and deserve better service for their investments. This is a problem with transmission infrastructure, which is causing the utility to shut off power. Remember that for the paragraph below.
Nationalize This. Here is a tweet from the Secretary of Energy, who never missed an opportunity to make his point and desire to return to the 20th century. The key quote “He [Sec. of Energy] also encourages policymakers to evaluate why the grid is not able to handle extreme stress, which could be alleviated with the support of greater caseload power generation and natural gas supply.” This was in response to the state’s request for federal intervention, clearly a moment of need and not a moment to get a backhanded comment.
Fixed Electricity Price. Here is your question of the day. Why is our electricity price a fixed rate, especially for IOUs? Competitive markets would do a better job of creating the types of behavior the grid needs to be resilient, resilience can’t just happen on the generation side of the ledger. We talk about this and more in this week’s podcast which posts later this week.
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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Yann