See You In 2018. This is likely the last newsletter you’ll get in 2017 given that news are essentially shut down for the year, my family is coming into town and I am going to be a bit lazier than usual. If big news break next week, I’ll make sure you are filled in. Please enjoy your families during Christmas and have a Happy New Year. I look forward to a smoother, less drama filled, 2018 and meeting more of you on the many shows we plan to have throughout the year.
Give Back. You’ll likely be sitting in your heated or air conditioned (in my case) home this weekend, cooking meals with your family and doing other fun things. Keep in mind that over 1 million Americans in Puerto Rico will not have that luxury because they don’t have electricity, for over 90 days now. That is why I want you to take a look at my interview with Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon, the ONLY representative that 3.4million Americans from Puerto Rico have in Congress. The interview is in video format and will hit your podcast apps this weekend. Please consider giving back through your company or personally at solarsaveslives.org or reach out to The Solar Foundation.
Stocking Stuffer. Coming back strong this year is SolarEdge with their holiday video. It’s a good one but my personal favorite remains this one, I am biased.
You Get Coals. SolarWorld bankers are trying to pump up the demand on buyers for their manufacturing assets. Nice try and crappy timing on the Thursday before Christmas, get a new marketing director. You’re definitely on the SolarWakeup naughty list.
You Get Fusion. I am surprised that I am surprised. I thought that the Georgia PSC would tell Georgia Power, privately, to stop the Vogtle nonsense but I was wrong. They are going to keep trying to get this done. I have a strong guess that it will not end well for the consumers in Georgia.
Catch Up With All Things SolarWakeup. 2017 has been an amazing year for this platform which is now turning into a company. What was an idea my wife pushed me into over 5 years, the first newsletter went out to 37 people and now over 5,000 of you read the news every day. I am routinely impressed by all you accomplish to move this industry forward. Content will keep coming your way, more board level summaries for you to leverage in decision making and the interviews most others can’t get. A few ways to stay in the loop on all things SolarWakup, pass them on to your friends and coworkers.Subscribe. Twitter. Apple Podcasts. YouTube.
See you on the other side, Happy New Year!
Yann (@yannbrandt on Twitter)
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Yann
Tax Reform. No substantive changes from the conference bill to the one signed into law yesterday. I’ve done some back of the envelope modeling and it looks like the values are in line with where they were, depending of tax investors’ circumstances of course. On the other hand, I do worry about the lack of liability in the overall market and how that will impact the pricing. There could be an interesting uptick in the C&I cash market for companies looking at the immediate depreciation, especially paired with things like PACE to defray the non-tax cash needs.
Get Me Pipeline. Greenskies has been acquired by Clean Focus in what looks like a path to more pipeline for the IPP. The competition for utility scale is strong and it makes sense for some to look for scale in the C&I markets. None of the deal terms were released but I would be surprised if this is more than an acquihire and acquisition of assets that may be on the balance sheet. Glad to see the transaction happen though.
Future Of Gas Power. The gas as a bridge fuel is going to have different shelf lives across States, each having their own sets of variables to drive the adoption beyond gas towards renewables. In California, the high energy prices and a group of regulators that looks beyond the short term has viewed the construction of gas plants (not just gas peakers) as unneeded, or at least it looks like they are implying this. The long term view on this is exacerbated by the next point below and when other power plants shut down.
More Mobility. I was a bit shocked by this number, BMW sold over 100k plug in vehicles in 2017. The i3 has always been underwhelming considering the skinny tires and strange design but I guess consumers are taking an interest to it. What happens to all of this when battery prices cut in half? What happens when more people drive an electric car (you should try if you haven’t) and realize it’s a better driving experience. The grid is going to finally see growth in demand and that demand will likely be matched by renewable generation dispatched through the batteries.
SolarWakeup Live New York. I am biased but I am excited about this event already. There will be a mix of public sector and private sector speakers on topics like REV, community solar development, big capital and blockchain innovation. The details are getting setup now and will be published here when they are finalized.
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Yann
Grid Scam. Resiliency, as the word defines, is a misnomer for what the coal lobby is trying to message. The coal lobby is trying to say that intermittent renewables cannot be trusted to turn the lights on and gas pipelines can have congestion. As everyone in solar knows, resiliency is based on the wood pole outside of the customer’s home. If it comes down in a storm or a car hits it, the generation means nothing. And as the Atlanta airport learned this week, the cost of energy means nothing if you become detached from the generation. You should spend at least some of your time figuring out how to answer and value the microgram system for your customers.
Energy Subsidy Parity. We always hear about subsidies in energy especially solar and wind. We never hear about it for oil and gas (obviously). Now that storage is gaining momentum, it makes sense for them to get into it as well. It’s time we talk about the utopian vision of getting rid of all subsidies, monopolies and rules that favor century old incumbent entities. DC-coupled energy storage has the built in technical advantage of being behind the point of interconnect that also is better suited to take the solar ITC. Dispatchable solar sounds like it could solve all of today’s news problems.
Legislative Truth. This headline gave truth what we have known for years. There are sometimes extra costs during replacement transitions that drive down costs in the long term and in the case of energy also drive down volatility. As more renewable energy gets into the markets, pricing will absolutely reverse and stabilize the market.
Hopkins Divestment. A point of personal privilege as the Board of Trustees, which I look forward to joining someday, of Johns Hopkins University has voted to eliminate investments in the Carbon Underground 200 companies. This is the third time Hopkins has done this with the last one coming in 1991 when they voted to stop investing in tobacco.
GE’s Fossil Problem. I read the coverage about GE’s changes in energy and I recall my conversation with Daniel Hullah of GE Ventures. In the conversation he mentioned that part of the strategy is to find technologies that can have synergies with GE products to make them more competitive or profitable, i.e. prop up the core business. I could see how that evolves to replacing core revenues with new products and services.
2018 Changes. Every year I try to do something different with the SolarWakeup platform, always iterating to improve on the product. Late this year I started the Live! events and in the new year hope to improve on the analysis of the day’s news a bit, creating a way for you to find the business impact of the news. What would you like to see different? Any tips or complaints?
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Yann