Minimum Import Price? The section 232 on poly looks to be coming soon, at least it seems so by some companies’ stock price pops. With a likely MIP (minimum import price) on modules, the question comes on how it will drive domestic factories and does it need a 45x extension bill in order to really drive that. At what MIP will the market slow in a way that is painful or can the off taker market manage it, those are the questions I am hearing right now.
Base Power. A residential storage company is raising $1billion at a whopping valuation of $13billion and you may not have heard of it. They don’t really sell anything to the solar market but they provide storage as a service to consumers, somewhere around 600MWh or more touting a daily build rate of 100 units. With this raise the company is also building their own 40kWh storage unit and owning the vertical supply chain. At $13b, Base is worth nearly 3x Enphase but that’s a bit apples and oranges given the infrastructure play that Base is but begs to question whether Enphase should raise a couple billion dollars and own the assets too. Of course, with 8.6GW of solar and 4.3GWh of storage, at a value of $2.3billion, Sunrun may feel some resentment.
News
1 Reuters:
US weighs polysilicon price floor, tariffs to counter China in solar and chips
2 PV-Magazine:
Base Power launches 39.2 kWh U.S-made Base Core home battery, secures $1 billion in new funding
3 Bloomberg:
Solar’s Boom in Europe Is Reaching Places Once Deemed Too Dark
4 Canary Media:
Data centers take center stage in Wisconsin governor’s race
5 New York Times:
Plug-In Solar Panels Are Starting to Sprout in U.S. Backyards
6 Utility Dive:
Southern Co. contracted large load rises to 17 GW
7 Axios:
The grid's climate stress test
8 PV-Tech:
T1 Energy, Clearway ink 641MW module supply deal using domestic cells
Opinions:
9 Energy Storage News:
Load smoothing, cold-start backup and speed-to-power - Fluence maps the battery storage opportunity for Australian data centres
Have a great day!
Yann
The LFP Scale Up. Samsung is building out their domestic LFP production and already highlights that demand will outpace their capacity which is a reasonable start to take. There is an overlap of the demand between the auto and energy sectors and finding the volumes that will drive pricing and cost structures. The trade cases will also come to the storage market, which will surely take some time to find a rationalization as well.
FCC Part 1 of Many. Hard to consider the FCC rule that defines everything. I’ve spoken to several executives that feel fine with what was issued from their side but when I speak to asset owners, they’re a bit more worried about replacements, firmware updates etc. My highlight is that this is likely to extend to storage and those software components in the EMS and BMS. Both of which would well to be expected to be included in the near future. On the market altering side, Some developers are wondering how the interconnection procedures will adapt to the rule and how it will be enforced at that level.
News
1 Energy Storage News:
Samsung SDI on track with US LFP cell production, expects demand to outstrip production
2 Heatmap News:
Scoop - Clearway Cancels Plan to Swap Solar Farm for Data Center and Gas Plant
3 Bloomberg:
KKR Buys Total Renewable Power Stake in €1.8 Billion Deal
4 Axios:
TotalEnergies agrees to buy Shell's European onshore renewables business
5 Reuters:
Ameresco books $1.8 billion in new awards as power demand remains strong
6 Salt Lake Tribune:
Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, marking a new first
7 Politico:
Kansas’ data center boom is shaking up the governor’s race
8 Utility Dive:
AEP secures 13 GW of gas turbines as generation ‘central’ to growth plans
9 Canary Media:
Virginia lays groundwork to combine more solar with farming
10 PV-Magazine:
First Solar hits sales record as it reaffirms 2026 guidance, balances tariff risk
Opinions:
11 PV-Tech:
Building with bankability in mind
Have a great day!
Yann
Opinion
Best, Yann
News
1 Bloomberg:
Brookfield Faces Looming Creditor Clash Over Polish Solar Firm
2 Axios:
The grid's climate stress test
3 Reuters:
US bars imports from 43 more companies over China's alleged forced labor involving Uyghurs
4 PV-Tech:
FIC acquires US solar-plus-storage firm Perfect Power
5 Solar Power World:
Xpanner unveils pile installation aid that attaches to skid steer
6 Energy Storage News:
‘Business as usual, just accelerated’
7 Canary Media:
New York takes on the myth that solar is swallowing farmland
8 PV-Magazine:
Tigo announces expanded eligibility for virtual power plants
Opinions:
9 New York Times:
A Cyberattack on US Water Systems And the Growing Threat of Falling Space Junk
Have a great day!
Yann
Opinion
Best, Yann
News
1 Energy Storage News:
‘Tremendously important market for storage’
2 Wall Street Journal:
First Solar Sales Fall on Contract Cancellations
3 PV-Magazine:
Solar nonprofits are taking the federal government to court over rescinded grants
4 Utility Dive:
DOE mulls changes to Biden-era transformer rule, raising utility concerns
5 Bloomberg:
China Crosses Energy Milestone as Coal Falls Below 50% of Power
6 Reuters:
Data center boom to make Portugal one of Europe's fastest-growing power markets, EDP says
7 PV-Tech:
Origis Energy inaugurates first half of 2GW Texas solar-plus-storage complex
Opinions:
8 Solar Buildermag:
Report - U.S. data center development slows in Q1
Have a great day!
Yann
