The Wind and Solar Connection. What if anything is or should be the relationship between wind and solar? Does the growth of the offshore wind market create new opportunities or limit the market potential for solar?
Scaling Corporate Deals. With the expansion of mega solar deals, how do they grow beyond Facebook/Amazon/Google or companies like AnBev? Could the market get into the smaller corporations with different credit profiles and smaller solar or does that simply become community solar or retail choice?
Good For The Goose. The National Grid pension fund is investing new funds into renewables in the UK. I have not seen similar pension moves in the US but it would be interesting to see how 401k’s are changing within their energy portfolios.
Sanders, Reviews and Policy. The Sunrise Movement has endorsed the candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders. Trump is looking to eliminate the environmental reviews for major projects. The House of Representatives is making moves that could set a climate plan in motion if the stars align.
A Climate Warrior Tribute. This SolarWakeup community is amazing, you donated with tremendous generosity allowing the organizers to double their goal for the children left alone. Read the story about Tyshaun and his tragic murder written by solar veteran Michael Healy and colleagues.
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Yann
The #Solar1000. I’ve been thinking about the 2020 prediction that I wanted to share since I’m already on the record with saying the residential solar market will grow more than 25% in 2020 even with the ITC stepdown. Looking at data yesterday, I think there is a great chance that more than 50 solar installers will break through 1,000 installs this year. I tweeted the prediction with a timestamp, so you can hold me to it. This is a big step for solar installers, it’s not just running a solar company but actually building a massive business. #waittosee
A SunShot Challenge. When it comes to government programs in the innovation space the SunShot program has been remarkably effective and successful. I can personally vouch that several solar companies exist today thanks to the early help from SunShot when ‘climate tech’ wasn’t something investors were funding. So it’s great to see what appears to be a similar effort get into the storage side of things. I hope the program calls me when they need reviewers once again.
Can We Deregulate? Virginia has a bill filed that would allow for retail energy choice for consumers, breaking off some of the monopoly power held by Dominion. This is likely a legislative long shot but the argument has long been made that neither party should continue to prop up an idea that hinders competition in a free market.
Request For Help. New Columbia Solar from DC lost one of their team members over the holidays. A single father that trained through community groups to be a core part of the solar installers business was tragically killed a few weeks ago. The company is asking the solar community to help raise funds for Tyshaun’s daughters. Thank you for your help.
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Emissions Are Declining. Some good news are coming out of 2019, emissions in the US are anticipated to be down 2% largely due to the electricity sector, good job everyone!
Visual Change To Generation. In 2019, coal consumption in the US is down 18% to the levels of 1975. If you want to see how this change is happening, look at the graph from the UK below. You can see how king coal was everything for nearly an entire century but that is changing. In Texas the trend is similar, wind basically equalled the generation of coal and will overcome it this year.
Need For More. Now that the generation portfolio is changing to a better blend, we have to make sure that solar is in a position to take on the additional load caused by electric cars. Estimates are coming out but that will surely be understated. With every major OEM going electric, what will they do to work together with homeowners and power suppliers.
What This Decade Means. This decade has already been labels the Solar+ decade by the solar DC trade group. In order to achieve this we must put our differences aside and realize that as an industry we have to be uniform in our message. Homeowners that have or want solar need to get involved and it’s our job to activate them!
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