A Vox Endorsement. In the latest installment of his series Vox reporter David Roberts brings his conclusion to paper that the way to solve utility woes in Northern California is through distributed generation. Take the case of the 93 year old living in a mobile home that had to buy an $800 generator to make it through the blackout, a few panels and storage would have likely done the trick and saved money throughout the year. How that infrastructure gets built out so all can benefit is obviously the next question.
Resi Market Growth, Pains. Roth is estimating multiple years of 25% growth in residential market and I concur with that assessment. How we, as an industry, ensure that the labor force is trained to build quality is the obvious question and we need training centers to do that.
Investigate The Monopoly. As the PG&E stock price reaches record lows, market cap of $2billion, the CPUC is opening an investigation of the shutoffs. According to a Propublica report, there is little to no likely benefit of the shutoffs except for limiting shareholder liability, not actually reducing fire risk.
EV Plan. Interesting to see the Senate Minority Leader come out with a massive EV plan that is supported by this writer and many others in the industry. Let’s hope he finds room in his log of interest that the ITC should be supported as well.
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PG&E Shuts Down Again. 2 years ago you recall my climate refugee status as I fled a hurricane in Florida. This weekend I sat in my office with kids in tow as PG&E expanded the blackouts beyond the previously announced shutoff areas to include my home and their school. When I grew up in Germany, we had ‘heat days’ when it was too hot (75 degrees) but now the kids in California can say they miss school because the air is full of smoke and the power is out. There will be plenty said about largest ever blackout in California but thinking this will be the norm over the next decade is clearly insanity.
Newsom Isn’t Happy. “Your years and years of greed. Years and years of mismanagement. Years and years of putting shareholders over people. Are OVER.” Those are the words from the Governor as he moves towards finding a partner to take over the broken utility. Wall Street also brought the stock to the lowest levels ever, a market cap of 12% of their annual revenues. Here’s the video
And Shut Down By Warren. There were some reports that Governor Newsom had asked Berkshire Hathaway to make a bid for PG&E which was quickly shut down by Warren Buffett himself. The theory is correct though, someone should bid to take over the assets with a clear vision and a responsibility to serve.
The Resi Microgrid Play. Two weeks ago I wrote, 600k more solar leads. It’s much more than that. Consumers across the Country are seeing the headlines that show utilities inability to serve their electric needs regardless of the demand charges levied on them. For one, the team at Generac that led the acquisition of Pika Energy is going back to the board and asking for major capital infusions based on how right they were. Generac is selling gas generators like crazy and all of the residential storage providers will sell more in the next quarter than they have supply for. Generac also led the investment into a residential solar software platform called Solargraf, making their move into the customer facing side of the value chain. I expect to see Solaredge and Enphase following down this path.
An ITC Coming? Speaking of storage, all of these headlines on climate disasters is going to make legislators think about their backup energy plans personally. What would you do if your power went out for a day, two days or a week? Should be the question asked of legislators. I’m handicapping storage addition to the ITC extension at over 50% for the first time. Once a long shot but I see the trend coming the right way.
Stay Safe. If you are affected by the fires raging in Northern or Southern California and need help, let me know. There is a network of peers here that are ready and willing to lend a helping hand. Stay safe and listen to the warnings.
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Thanks Vote Solar. It was a great evening with the team from Vote Solar in DC. Thank you for your leadership and the amazing speeches. I am more motivated and ready to act on behalf of the industry. Thank you to the sponsors and attendees for participating!
Making Money. Morgan Stanley says that it will take $50 Trillion of investment to solve climate change. Sounds like a great opportunity to make money for everyone in the value chain including the investors that put up the money. Remember, the entire US grid and power infrastructure was built with significant profits for the ecosystem.
Situational Awareness. Leaving the Paris Climate Accords isn’t going to be helpful to create the regulatory environment to deploy that kind of capital. If you want trillions to be invested then regulatory risk has to be low or limited, or the cost of capital goes up to the point where deployment slows or stops.
One Opportunity. The home is still incredibly dumb for energy consumption, solar produces when it does, the laundry goes when it does and there is limited dashboarding of consumption by the homeowner. What gets measured gets done is something I say all the time, we need to start showing energy consumption on an iPad to the homeowner.
To Make The Bet. National Grid Ventures is making more capital bets on companies in the space. Some things to note over the past year you’ve seen the 3 leading racking companies acquired to form the largest distributed racking company in the world and three of the major software tools for residential solar have raised capital: Solargraf, Energy Toolbase and Aurora Solar.
And Action For You. California regulators say the State needs another 4GW, are you going to help? I wish there was a statewide effort to put solar panels on the warehouses in the State.
Without Selling. Tesla did 43MW in Q3 this year, down 50% YoY but up from Q2 and without a salesforce. Too early to tell if this is an uptick and restart of the system or something else.
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No column Today. See you in DC tonight!
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