A Moment To Write A Note. You really have no choice, today is the day that you need to take a minute and forward an email to your team. If you didn’t know, Robert Lighthizer, is the US Trade Representative. He is the one that sits in the oval office and briefs the President on trade issues. The solar 201 petition is essentially passed the trade commission phase and moving into the Lighthizer hearing phase. This hearing is happening on December 6th and while you will not be able to get into the hearing, you can send public comment. Here is your task for today. As each of your employees to write a comment and ask your customers to send one too. Together we can get 100,000 comments on behalf of the solar industry to Mr. Lighthizer. The link to comments is here, if you need a draft script, it is here.
Not What If but Would You? Everyone has done this math but it is time to execute. What if your employee cost went up by 5 cents per hour. $2 per week. What if your salary went down 5 cents per hour or $2 per week? $2 per week isn’t going to break your business or personal budget. On the other hand, if every solar professional provided 10 cents per hour to an advocacy campaign, I guarantee that your job prospect would improve and be saddled with less regulatory uncertainty. In theory, if I started a SolarWakeup advocacy campaign that was funded by our readers and their companies employees, we would have over $10million in annual budget. With that budget, we would have a mailing list of over a million American solar supporters and local officials would know better than to vote against solar. Call this SolarPledge 2.0. If 10,000 readers/employees commit to this, I’ll quit my other work and we can conquer the solar coaster together. Would you?
Power Markets & Solar. In my conversation with Tom Matzzie last week we spoke about his work in the power markets as an energy retailer. Part of being a retailer is matching generation with customer load through financial products common in the power markets. Those same products, outside of accounting rules, allow retailers to create their own synthetic community solar programs. Some cautionary messages from Tom on this as well but if you aren’t working with a retailer yet, you probably should be.
The MA SMART Program. This week you will hear the recording of my conversation with Mike Judge, Director of Renewable Energy at Mass DOER. Mike is in charge of the SMART program regulations draft and the auction process. The news he made at SolarWakeup Live! was that the RFP for the first block will come out this week or next. There was some hesitation in light of the 201 proceeding but if the SMART program were to start on time, next summer, the RFP has to go out now. Be aware that the auction could be skewed by developers that have protected modules without 201 tariffs meaning that any assumed increase of price you include could put you outside of the bidding norm.
Your Event. I want to thank MDV-SEIA for asking me to hold an interview at their event. If your group is hosting an event and want to chat about doing the same, I welcome the opportunity.
House Versus Senate. Keep your eyes on the difference between the Senate and House tax bills.
DC Sponsors. Starting today you will see logos and links for Live! DC sponsors. I want to thank Standard Solar, MMA Energy Capital, NTCIC, GAF and True Green Capital for sponsoring. Please take a moment and learn more about their work.
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Yann
Today is Veteran’s Day and a great time to thank all veterans working alongside us in the solar industry. I also want to thank the leaders that give opportunity and seek out veterans when the time comes to work as a civilian.
10 Minutes. 10 People. The trade rep hearing on the 6th is a big deal. SEIA is likely to be planning some great and public participation that you should look for. In the meantime take ten minutes and get ten colleagues to do the same to send your comments to the trade representative about what this 201 petition means to you, your job and your company. 10 minutes times ten people. That’s what we need.
Rocking The Policy. Vote Solar is doing some pretty awesome things and getting involved in policy battles across the Country. They are also growing and adding superstars to the already stacked team, (much like the Miami Heat team a few years ago). Keep watching them, and their efforts.
Steyer. Is compiling quite the email list with his impeachment efforts. Moreover, with the likely tracking code on the website, he is capturing the Fox & Friends viewers that are coming back to his website. The retargeting I would do would then show a Facebook ad for Trump support with an email capture system there. Information warfare starts with someone clicking a link. The stated goal is 2million emails, which would give him almost 2% of the last election, which is a great place to start if you want to run any sort of issue campaign.
Painter’s Union. In this conversation with Tom Matzzie he tells the story of his time as a union organizer and his experience working with a painter looking to join the union. Painters had to spend many hours working on political related advocacy to advance their union. Learning to educate those that affect their business was classified as a requirement. If you compare the importance of policy in the painting sector versus solar, ask yourself the importance of investing the time to advocate.
Dollars In Dallas. This is a brutal headline for local politicians and may be the best news push of the 201 petition. Losing $100million investment in a single County is brutal for a county admin and this is happening across the South because of the trade case. If you know a project halted, at risk, let’s put it into the newspapers.
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Yann
Live From DC! Big congratulations to the new and fantastic team at MDV-SEIA. They cover 3 (4) States and hosted their annual Solar Focus Conference this week. I had the opportunity to interview Tom Matzzie, CEO of CleanChoice at the conference and record it so you could listen as well. Tom is an amazing advocate and energy leader in our space using the power of the masses to advance renewable energy. I can’t wait for him to lead CleanChoice to 1 million customers. Tom and I are sharing some great ideas on advocacy which we will hopefully share soon!
10 Hours. In our conversation, Tom tells the story about the union painter having to spend certain amount of hours educating legislators. What would it take for you to spend 10 hours per month on policy like calling or meeting with legislators, volunteering on a campaign or educating regulators? Imagine if 275,000 solar pros spent 2.7million hours per month on policy, do you think we’d be fighting legislative battles right now?
Inverter Battles. There seems to be split happening in the microinverter battle between SolarEdge and Enphase. SolarEdge announced revenues of $166million, net income of $26million. On the other hand Enphase had revenues of $77million and lost $5.9million. The problem with technology is that winners take market share and the slide as the second place is difficult. I’d expect Enphase to pivot into something that separates the offering into another category so the comparison isn’t apples to apples and allows customers to think differently. If they don’t expect more of the split to happen.
Ratebasing Solar. There has been a flurry of requests for and investments in renewable energy. NV Energy is looking to approve PPAs at rates in the $30/MWh range. AEP, like NextEra, has focused on ratebasing renewable energy. The issue is that utilities aren’t truthful about what is best for the customers. A PPA in Florida or Ohio would likely have better rates than the LCOE to consumers, especially in the situation that would drive the utility to give zero capacity value for planning purposes and request additional gas power to make up capacity needs.
DER Data. Does anyone have data on demand side management, demand response programs run by investor owned utilities? This goes in line with capacity value for solar across distributed and central plants as I don’t remember the last time my DSM box was used for my AC unit in South Florida.
Tickets!!! There are going to be a lot of solar people in DC during SolarWakeup Live! DC. Our room is only going to be able to hold about 75 seats. Get your tickets now before it sells out. If you are worried about the content, it’s time you trust that I am going bring value to the conversation. The key is to have relevant conversations that are timely!
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Yann