More Tariff Trouble. My day was going fine, enjoying a nice weekend in Florida visiting my new nephew, when Trump comes across the Twitter and lets America know that he’s raising tariffs on more imported goods. This is potentially a big deal for solar if it actually goes into effect and gets worse. Remember, the negotiations were close to complete according to reports when he sent the tweet. Now China is thinking about calling off the talks altogether. We all know he likely sent the tweet with a wink, playing foreign policy chicken with American jobs. The reality is that American factories rely on robust supply chains that include on and offshore suppliers. Less offshore supply increases the price on domestic supply and therefore slows factory operations. Let’s hope this doesn’t drag solar down more, this may be tariff number 5 or 6 on our industry.
Inslee Goes 100. A big release by the Governor Inslee presidential campaign. His plan is called 100% Clean Energy For America and it knocks the roof off every State 100% RPS plan that’s been passed. I want you to read the highlights yourself by clicking here, but here is a teaser. No more coal pollution by 2030, 100% clean electricity by 2035 and a focus on front line and low income Americans impacted by climate change. This is the type of plan that we’ve been talking about in back rooms that we said we needed. We wanted the campaign that elevated climate change to the Presidential debate stage and make it an issue. We are there now and we need to grab the opportunity by the horns and turn it into action.
Tesla’s Vision To Standardize Solar. There is some out of the box thinking coming out of Tesla these days. Most of us that live solar every day would argue that it’s very difficult to standardize solar given that every house is different. Tesla seems to be saying that that want homeowners to buy solar in prepackaged quantities so that the logistics of the trucks and costs are repetitive in nature. You can go through the sales cycle on their website which gets millions of hits per month and may be a great sales funnel if they can figure out how to get those visitors to transact.
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Yann
Spruce Comes Back. After having been taken over by their senior lender and stopping the loan business, Spruce is back in the market with a bit of a twist. Spruce will be buying solar portfolios based on the knowledge that the company has in operating the assets. I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to also managing portfolios for institutional capital when the solar market grows to beyond 1million new homes going solar per year.
South Carolina Dealmaking. Legislators and the utility are closer to a deal that would uncap the net metering rule for a period of 2 years. The ‘cost’ is that PURPA projects that need contracts over 10 years would have to create some sort of guarantee that the rate stays below the avoided cost. Hard to read the fine print on that and think that the contract isn’t really a contract but I will speak to some developers and try to understand what it means. Good news for residential though and I’m sure homeowners will be making sure their roof warranty stay intact by asking for Quick Mount.
A Climate Emergency. The UK parliament has agreed on Brexit, just not from the EU but instead from carbon emissions. The parliament wants the UK to be net-zero by 2050 and urged the Committee on Climate Change to adopt a resolution stating that fact.
Down To $5.3Billion. The oil companies have had a tough quarter, Shell’s profits were down year over year and only achieved $5.3billion for the quarter. The others were down as well and the total profits barely surpassed $10billion for the quarter in total. Hard to imagine that the consolidation between solar/EVs/storage and the oil majors doesn’t continue into the next decade.
Presented By RayTray. RayTray is a solar wire management system. Designed for commercial ballasted flat or standing seam roof projects. It was created by commercial solar installers for commercial installers. It is a great, cost-effective solution for managing home runs, quicker and easier to install than conduit. RayTray is listed to conform to UL Standard 870. It is highly customizable with no grounding needed and no roof attachment. It can hold up to thirty 10 gauge wires per tray. RayTray also simplifies O&M, giving quick access to wires, all at a cost of less than a penny per watt.
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Yann
More updates tomorrow as I am on the road and out of time!
Presented By RayTray. RayTray is a solar wire management system. Designed for commercial ballasted flat or standing seam roof projects. It was created by commercial solar installers for commercial installers. It is a great, cost-effective solution for managing home runs, quicker and easier to install than conduit. RayTray is listed to conform to UL Standard 870. It is highly customizable with no grounding needed and no roof attachment. It can hold up to thirty 10 gage wires per tray. RayTray also simplifies O&M, giving quick access to wires, all at a cost of less than a penny per watt.
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Yann
This Is Mainstream. Imagine if I told you last year, let alone 5 years ago, that a national poll would rank climate change as the most important issue for primary voters. That happened in the latest CNN poll, where 96% of respondents said it was very important. Climate change beat out healthcare and gun control in this poll. See the detail below and you can see the entire poll here.
The Counter Point. If climate change were the top issue, why is Governor Jay Inslee, who only talks about climate change, only polling at 1%? Is it purely a name ID issue and that he needs more people to hear him say the words?
The Counter Counter Point. The day before the poll went out, which was released prior to today on embargo (which means the press got it earlier), Beto O’Rourke released his $5trillion climate plan. While this is one poll, candidates are taking it seriously enough to lead with the issue.
Who’s Advising The Teams? I don’t know anyone in solar embedded with the teams and that worries me. There should be industry insight going into the campaigns and at the very least data being fed to the campaigns so they know our talking points. An example would be when President Obama used the Solar Market Insight data in the State of the Union speech.
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Yann