201 Plaintiffs Strike Again. On June 21st, executives from First Solar, Suniva and Q-Cells met with the Deputy Trade Representative to fight back against the 201 tariff exclusion for bi-facial modules. The fact that Suniva is still actively undermining the solar industry is incredibly frustrating. First Solar has a great product with Series 6 and should let its product do its talking instead of trying for a regulatory band aid. The claim is that wall street’s bullish outlook on the exclusion shows that this is an undue advantage for bi-facial manufacturers, a technology that none of the three plaintiffs are showing on their product websites. If you have more information on this, go ahead and send it to me confidentially by hitting reply.
Impact If Successful. This impacts utility-scale solar since that is where the bi-facial market is largely focused. Companies like NEXTracker have been hyping the benefits of bi-facial on trackers for over a year and the exclusion gave some lift to the more expensive technology. The meeting was held to ask for the exclusion to be rescinded or place a 500MW quote on the exclusion. If either of those is granted, it will likely depress the market once more creating greater urgency on extending the ITC. What is clear is that the plaintiffs have no regard to the crisis caused by climate change, this is pure financial motive.
Bill Gates’s Nuclear Concerns. Bill Gates is concerned that an advanced nuclear technology that he is invested in will not find a home for its demonstration project. Originally slated for China, Gates hopes that this technology will be given a chance in the US. Gates is outspoken about the need for advanced nuclear research and development to create a carbon-free future and in this case, is putting his money where his mouth is.
Sunnova’s Raise. The initial offering hopes to sell north of 17million shares between $16 and $18 with the upper range providing $365million in the raise. I think this is a good time to go out with installers giving a very positive outlook to the residential market and Sunrun (similar but different) doing well in the public markets.
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Cypress Turnaround Continues. The new leadership team at Cypress Creek, with a positive reputation in the market, is making more changes to the business model. One of those changes is eliminating the in-house EPC division so that the development can contract with external EPC partners. EPC is one of those internal cost centers that has benefits on multiple fronts including financial structuring ones. The core expertise at Cypress will remain with the early development, knowing how to take a piece of land and get it to NTP.
The Storage Market. Yes, private equity firms and infrastructure investors are keen to get into the storage market and deploy capital. The same is true for integrators, companies that take the parts and pieces and make a system, and storage OEMs, which are focused on longevity and warranty bankability. It is hard to build one of these companies which is making it a ripe market for acquisitions as well as a less obvious reason, talent. Talent that really knows and understands storage is still incredibly fragmented.
Needs Some Markets. The storage sector also is lacking what has taken solar more than a decade to get, markets. Look at the aches and pains that it has taken SMART to get off the ground and even how slow storage has been to take off in California. That’s why trade reports like the one about DERs in New Jersey is particularly important for the continued growth of the up and coming markets.
Energy Choice Fight. There isn’t much detail here and the number isn’t big enough to fight against the IOUs but Florida is going to gear up for a discussion about energy choice. The proposed constitutional amendment wants to open up energy retail choice for consumers and the fight got $3million to get it started. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one!
New Pod. Go to your podcast apps and check out the latest pod with Michael Judge of the DOER to talk about SMART, if it’s helpful to your business then share it with your friends online, make sure to tag #solarwakeup!
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PG&E Bailout. It’s coming and ready to be signed, what did solar get?
Speaking Of Solar. PG&E is still warning its customers that power outages may be coming and they should think about backup generators. Generators, not solar and storage, (only in the fine print) because solar plus storage would be too permanent.
Judge Isn’t Happy. The WSJ is out with some in-depth reporting about PG&E and the Judge wants a paragraph by paragraph response.
New Pod. Over the next few weeks you will get the recordings of SolarWakeup Live! Boston starting with my conversation about opportunity zone funding for solar projects. Subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating!
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Important ITC, Don’t Miss This. We need to double down on the great success of yesterday. SEIA is working with members of Congress to prove that the solar industry supports the ITC. I need you to sign on to this letter, right now, to show Congress that the ITC is important to you. It takes 10 seconds. Take an extra minute and ask your LinkedIn network to do the same thing. This is time sensitive, please don’t postpone clicking on it until later. Sign On Now!
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