Flawed And Basic Analysis From MIT. The movie has been seen before, solar homeowners reduce their consumption and therefore pay for less of the fixed grid costs that are added to your bill on a per kWh basis. I have come to expect more from MIT but will continue to be disappointed. When someone says that solar owners shift their costs to other energy consumers they do so at great investment, much like a homeowner that installs all new appliances and air conditioners that use less electricity. What about people that change their light bulbs to LEDs or install a tankless water heater fueled by gas? All of those situations decrease kWh consumption and thereby lower infrastructure payments. We will also ignore seasonal homeowners in this conversation. What about homeowners that buy electric vehicles, should they be given a discount on their consumption since they are absorbing more of the infrastructure but not paying a gas tax that pays for the roads they travel? Here is the reality, this isn’t a one-way analysis and a fixed charge is far from a solution to this non-existent problem. Solar owners buy less kWh from the utility and therefore pay less for the infrastructure. Solar owners also firm up the infrastructure with their investment and make the utility less likely to have to invest in the infrastructure. When the payments lost are less than the savings gained, solar owners come out in the green. They save money for other utility customers and experts have shown this time and time again.
The Importance Of Quality. Congratulations to CALSSA for tackling the important issue of consumer protection and making it a standard for its members. Homeowners will have another way to know if a contractor is doing it the right way and not pulling a fast one on them, whether they are doing it with aggressive sales tactics, dubious financing or subpar installation techniques. SEIA has a guide as well and I’d like to see that expanded to the installation/products side of things as well.
San Francisco’s Muni Power. San Francisco is asking PG&E to let it go, offering $2.5billion for the electric infrastructure so that the city can create its own utility system like Los Angeles and Sacramento. They are not asking to acquire the gas system. San Francisco has voiced interest since the bankruptcy and now wants the company to ask the courts to let it make the deal. Voters have already approved the funding mechanism so the city can buy the wires and no further votes (through election) would have to be taken. PG&E didn’t say no explicitly in their comment but “we’re not interested” would have saved us a minute of reading. This story is not over yet, stay tuned…
Island Infrastructure. It’s been two years since Puerto Rico was ravaged by Hurricane Maria and the industry spent time to figure out the best way to rebuild the electric infrastructure. The upper Bahamas are now in a similar situation, some islands left with nothing, after Hurricane Dorian last week. The Bahamas have to rebuild in a way that serves the tourism economy and tries to create some sustainability. Most transportation is marine and aviation so all-electric is impossible today but how can we help the Bahamians with our lessons learned?
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Yann
Have a great day!
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Have a great day!
Yann
The Flawed Dilemma. Following up with on yesterday’s poll that showed separation from voters on the importance of climate change, is this article about the varying views of the policies being debated within the democrat party. Some view the green new deal as extreme and going too far, especially on the non-climate related policies. And that’s okay, if the democrats finds ways to pass some or all of the policy, we are stepping in the right direction. I don’t think that this is bad politics, voters actually want debate and action; the politics comes in when one side says we want to do something and the other side has no counterpoint. It’s as if your house is on fire and two fire trucks debate which side of the house to spray first while the third says the house isn’t burning. Spray the damn house!
The Real Life Upside. This Rolling Stone story about the Harlan County coal miners is one of the best articles of the year. The story is about a coal company that filed bankruptcy and cheated workers out of 2 paychecks, the first check bounced and the second check never came. At the same time, $1.4million in coal was loaded on a train at the mine and ready to be sent out to a buyer. So for the past month, out of work miners in Harlan County, KY, have been sitting on the railroad tracks. The train is stuck until the workers get paid, “No Pay We Stay,” is their slogan. Some 1,700 workers lost their job in this bankruptcy and there would be nothing that would make me happier than figuring out how solar can play a role in their next job opportunity. Coal communities are oftentimes solely reliant on the mine being open, without it, the community has nowhere else to turn for economic opportunity. When it comes to debating climate change, let’s debate the climate change upside in a way that means something tangible to the workers on the Harlan County railroad tracks, so they make a decent wage doing a day’s work but instead of mining for coal they are installing solar panels, making hardware or climbing wind turbines. That’s the political argument that means something to voters.
Ignoring The Pundits. One person who is ignoring the polls is Elizabeth Warren, who adopted and doubled down on the Inslee plan to combat climate change. In a medium post, Warren called for trillion dollar level investments that decarbonize the economy over a ten year period. This was met with quick endorsements for her by ex-Inslee staffers.
Solar Market Optimism. The optimism for the US market continues, not just with talking points from executives but tales from the financial statements as well. Module and cell companies are talking about massive investments and backlogs from strong global market demand and a US market that is looking to push strong going into 2020, especially with hopes that the ITC gets pushed through.
Watch The O&M Space. BayWa r.e. acquired the Toronto based software company, PowerHub, yesterday. PowerHub is well known in the asset management space as a solution to manage projects after they have been placed in service. Originally started to help Ontario solar projects manage their domestic content certifications, PowerHub made a quick pivot to the broader market and found an exit in this acquisition. Congrats to the team on this and keep watching the O&M space for more consolidation.
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Yann
Keep Calm and Solar On. Every one of my non-solar friends has asked me about the Walmart/Tesla lawsuit. Without resolving the issue, Walmart made solar seem risky for everyday Americans. The funny part of it is that Walmart and Amazon (who chimed in as well) are both signing new solar deals after the fires. The corporates are learning from the issue and continuing on and it would be great if they said something to that effect publicly.
The Partisan Divide. For some reason, climate change continues to be a divided issue in America. When asked if climate change is a major risk to the US, only one in four republicans said yes while three in four democrats respond affirmative. In all, it reaches 57% which is hardly a majority issue but in the politics of 50 plus 1, it may be enough.
Stationary Disasters. If you spent any time living in Florida you know that every three hours you get your National Hurricane Center update. Spend a decade living in Max Mayfield’s cone of uncertainty and you start looking for key metrics during the latest advisory. One is the pressure of the system, under 900mb is really bad, and the other is the movement. Most storms say something like WNW at 8mph as the storm seeks warmer waters. Hurricane Dorian got as low as 910mb before making landfall in the Bahamas and has been pounding the islands for almost 24 hours. Last night the storm continued to be stationary which is unheard of, especially at those wind speeds. This is undoubtedly related to climate change and no amount of ice on those waters will help.
A Coal Blueprint. Instead of doing the IRP dance around the Country, I hope that a think tank provides a reliable, accepted study on coal plant retirements. Running these plants to the end of their useful lives is entirely not useful nor in the best financial interest of consumers. And now, the end is near and so coal faces the final curtain…
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Yann