NY Promise. Governor Cuomo of New York is betting big on the energy transition to renewables. Community solar, energy storage and offshore wind getting big wins in New York which is a welcome development for the local solar market. We will be discussing REV, solar credit values (VDERs) and energy storage in New York with some of the leading developers at the New York SolarWakeup event on January 31st. If we sell enough tickets in the next week, we will get into a bigger space to make room for the discussion. Use WAKEUP25 to save 25% and get tickets here.
Hockey Curve. A few years ago, there was real pessimism about solar and renewables in Australia. The market has turned this around in a real way offering great ways for the grid to lower costs using solar pricing and large scale energy storage. It is foreseeable that the island grid can be fossil free in a relative short period of time. UK can present similar opportunities for grid flexibility systems.
WSJ Bait. Data, when taken out of context, really create the headline that a reporter wants. With the 201 case in full swing for almost all of 2017, I find it intriguing that the Wall Street Journal sees increased imports of solar equipment only due to the trade case. Pricing for modules were low in the summer already and most companies I have spoken to have not offered to take retroactive tariff risk from the supplier, which suppliers are requiring. My only assumption is that imports are based on previous POs that are guided into existing projects that have been developed for years, in line with the sworn testimony by NextEra at the ITC hearing in October.
Nuclear Bailout. With SCANA failing with their nuclear ambitions and potentially on the hook for millions in consumer refunds, Dominion is making a bid to acquire SCANA over some fierce competition. Investors see big opportunities in these regulated monopolies, working a few regulators instead of the competitive market is much easier and a bit of a stain on the politics around the Country. Consumers should and are pushing back on the value they are getting from their monopolies and politically speaking, candidates should be talking about the raw deal they are getting.
Twitter Debate. About the talk of R&D in energy versus constant marginal improvements, where do you fall on the debate? Do you think that a technology invention could be commercialized in a way that changes the world or is there another way to do this? Let me know your thoughts.
Tips. Reminder - you are welcome to send me tips, anonymously on solarwakeup.com or by sending me an email at Yann@SolarWakeup.com
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Yann
Puerto Rico. There have been some developments over the holidays but over 1 million Americans in Puerto Rico are going on over 100 days without power. This is now a political failure at the highest levels, this has little to do with logistics and preparation at this point but more with money and power. It’s sad to see this happening and I’m a bit shocked that EEI and utilities across the Country let it go on this long. Imagine going 20 days without power, then quintuple that.
Guess Who’s Back. Now that Terraform Global has been acquired by Brookfield, SunEdison is exiting bankruptcy proceedings and is now a private company once again. It took somewhere around 14 years for SunEdison to go from birth and back to its beginnings. Co-Founder, Jigar Shah, recently posted the first website,check it out here.
Stories To Watch. Next week’s podcast will feature Amy Harder of Axios, a conversation we recorded during SolarWakeup Live! DC. (You can get NYC tickets here). She has a look ahead of the top energy news coming up which obviously includes the trade case with the January 26th deadline. Frank Andorka has an update on the USITC memo about the trade reps questions in today’s rundown.
Corporate Renewables. Part of offsite renewables is getting consumers and renewable generation into the same grid system. With a lot of generation capacity in the Western States, it makes sense to increase the geographic scale of the Western grid system. More open markets means more opportunity for renewables to match with customers.
Energy R&D. This is a Bill Gates concept from one of his memos a few years back. Solving energy problems with new technology is a lofty goal but fails the commercialization test. New technologies, even those that seem popular, need to go through years of pilot projects before entering bankability and independent engineering so it can be deployed at the billion dollar scale. This is a game of step sized improvements that will be unlikely to be solved by a silver bullet. More customers, buying more renewable energy, is the risk that the market needs to take on.
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Yann
Welcome To 2018. Happy New Year! I hope you are enjoying or have come back from an exciting holiday. I will be spending this week at a trade show for my ‘side hustle’ (check out ttopbuddy.com). Next stop, Shark Tank! This week looks to be short on news as many reporters are still out of pocket, will have daily editions anyways just to catch up on the things that make me excited for this year.
New York. On January 31st, join me in New York City for SolarWakeup Live as we kick of 2018. The CEO of the NY Green Bank is joining us for a conversation about capital and how New York is thinking out of the box on getting more investments into the local solar markets. Alfred Griffin is a veteran when it comes to energy capital and it’s great to have him. More speakers are being announced soon on the conversation about REV and Blockchain as some of the highlights. Use WAKEUP25 to save 25% this week only.
Catch Up. Make sure you are catching up on all the podcast episodes, available at
Tariff Checkers. Every time Axios reports the inside conversation about White House tariff talk, I get nervous. My hope is that the tariff put in place is only the perspective of what the advisors show as the worst case not what Trump could actually do. This is the time to see if solar trade groups actually have the clout that we all expect them to have. Ball is on the court and the players have been chosen, game on.
Go Faster. I’ve talked about this here before, the biggest issue with storage for market development is the disparity between grid regulators’ version of fast start and what energy storage can actually deliver. Creating a market on milliseconds would destroy the current peaker market and therefore would be slow to be deployed.
My 2018. It’s been over a year since I left Conergy and I want to bring you up to speed on some of the work I’ve been focused on. One of the places is advising great companies that are established market leaders in solar with their corporate ventures initiatives. Matching corporate goals with new startups creates opportunities for 2 entrepreneurs to gain runway and traction by matching synergetic goals. Angel investing in solar is rather dry, corporate ventures are a great way for me to help the ecosystem.
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Yann
In this episode of SolarWakeup Live! I interview Puerto Rico’s only representative in Congress, Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon about the state of the electric grid in Puerto Rico after the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Gonzalez-Colon explains what the future was supposed to be in Puerto Rico with legislation she sponsors as the Speaker of the House in PR before coming to DC.
In this episode of SolarWakeup Live! I interview Puerto Rico’s only representative in Congress, Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon about the state of the electric grid in Puerto Rico after the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Gonzalez-Colon explains what the future was supposed to be in Puerto Rico with legislation she sponsors as the Speaker of the House in PR before coming to DC.
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