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.
Opinion
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
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.
Opinion
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
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.
Opinion
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
Stimulus Package Gets Stuck. DC politics are thick right now around the stimulus package. There was a path to a quick passage in the Senate but that will not happen which means your work to advocate for solar to have a chance to be included continues. Politics are a fluid race to the finish but the finish line is always moving, it’s also the industry we’re in so let us take a deep dive on politics, policy and solar.
Bipartisan Means What? Poll after poll shows that solar support from voters is bipartisan, in some cases even a swing issue. Solar pros often tout the bipartisan nature of what we do, and I agree with them. I also agree that solar is resilient to withstand most solar politics, the industry is still doing well under Trump which was considered a major risk. But, there is a caveat. Solar is not that bipartisan, most instances of solar market creation by State and Federal government happened when political power shifted from republican to democrat. I asked my Twitter followers for good examples and here are some of their views. NJ, VA, and MD are some examples. I think SC is an example where a GOP majority worked with the industry.
Why Does It Matter? 7 GOP Senators gave solar the bipartisan support that we seek as an industry, here is a public policy poll that shows you why it was sent. Maine, North Carolina and Arizona all have clean energy jobs as +40 when polled. Senators from all three States signed on to the letter, betting that the letter is the only action needed to get some of that vote. This is an important note to consider because it underpins the comment “solar will be fine regardless of who is in charge”. Polling and experience suggests that neither party wants to destroy the solar industry but differs in their willingness to grow the market.
Like It Or Not, Policy Matters. Status quo may be enough for some but growth in this market means being involved in policy. Look at the work done in Virginia by advocates that took dominion from <200MW to a future of 19,000MW. That is policy at work. Florida still benefits from the policy pushed in 2007 by then Governor Charlie Crist and Vote Solar. It is very dangerous for the solar industry to be spectators in policy, you can advocate hard for policies without being partisan. This is my call to action because we are still underinvesting in policy, your budget should include at least 1% of revenue for policy activities.
Just Look At Oil. The big 5 oil companies are spending nearly $1million per day just to lobby on the topic of climate. That doesn’t include the millions spent on PR and marketing consultants to get stories like today’s New York Times story. Add the State level lobbying dollars and you realize that we’re not in a fair fight.
Opinion
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann