All About The Remedy. We know what Suniva wants, a minimum price which is both ludicrous and un-American at the same time. We don’t know what SolarWorld and Stion want, neither of which have responded to comment but long time SolarWorld employees are stating online that they seem to support the Suniva request. Employees are actively commenting on SolarWorld’s official LinkedIn page which could be a good place for you to leave your thoughts as well. I don’t expect SolarWorld to support the minimum price and definitely not a tariff on imported cells. The hearing for the remedy is coming up with the recommendation going to the President on November 13th. About the press release from SolarWorld today; that’s stupid corporate bullshit. Just manufactured bullshit to bring into the hearing and try to buy some goodwill. If they promise to hire 200, then make sure you care about the thousands that will lose their jobs.
Rebuilding Puerto Rico. All the facts coming out of Puerto Rico are disheartening. Solar farms are destroyed, infrastructure non-existent and as PREPA CEO puts it, ‘devastated’. As PR looks to rebuild, the question has to be asked. After giving communities energy as fast as possible, what should the grid look like? What technologies, infrastructure and resilience would give PR a 21st century grid?
SolarWakeup Live! Almost Sold Out. You are all awesome. The support from the readers will sell out the first event way faster than I expected. I am working with the host to look at some additional capacity but ticket sales will likely cap out at 75 seats and we are almost there. If you want to be at the inaugural event, buy your tickets now, they are just $50 and give you a great excuse to get a few days of MA business done. As a special addition, the ITC will be voting on the remedy on the same day and I’ll give a special breakdown of the remedy proposal live with Q&A.
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Yann
Get Your Tickets, Selling Out Fast. The first event won’t be big, we’ve got space for about 50 people. I’ve released tickets that you can buy here but get them before they sell out. The tickets for DC will go on sale soon as well. I’ve got some great interviews getting set up and will announce the 2018 schedule next month with the target of 10 Cities across America.
Injury Yes. Remedy Next. SEIA, SolarWorld, Trump. On Friday, the expected happened. The trade commission found injury to have been caused under the 201 petition. This opens the next steps and makes solar political. On October 31st, the ITC will have a hearing to discuss appropriate remedies. Suniva has asked for 40 cent minimum price for cells and 78 cents for modules. SolarWorld has not responded to requests for comment on their requested remedy. I’ve also asked Stion which remedy they would like to see but have not received responses to my emails. SEIA will keep fighting and the many manufacturers in solar vow to keep leading alongside. On Friday, SolarWorld came out with a statement that showed their true colors. They want to negotiate a deal. Getting the injury finding was the leverage they wanted to figure out a way to screw over the solar industry but they’ve forgotten that Trump gets the last word. By mid-January, Trump will dictate what the remedy is regardless of the ITC’s proposal or any deal. I’d like to hear from my readers if they are buying SolarWorld modules or have plans to. Please reach out if you have a PO in or will be placing a PO in the next few quarters.
Puerto Rico In Despair. We take it for granted. Electricity drives our society and whenever we want it, we have it. Puerto Rico, after getting crushed by a Hurricane Maria, doesn’t have it and who knows when they’ll get it again. The infrastructure is non-existent and I’ve seen images of solar farms that look like a bomb was dropped on it. A society without energy can’t pump gas, can’t work, can’t transmit cellular communications to coordinate aid. Puerto Rico needs hundreds of solar microgrids in a box to get through this. I don’t know how to get them or distribute them but it needs to get done. I’ve got ships leaving South Florida for Puerto Rico on a daily basis but our industry needs to get this done, somehow, someway.
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Yann
A Veteran, a Texan, and a Governor Go Into a Bar. This isn’t the start of a bad joke or one of my favorite country songs. This is the end of the pleading going into tomorrow’s 201 injury finding. There are more co-signers to a single letter than all of the proponents of this nuisance bailout. While I am hopeful that one of the yes votes sees the transparent attempt by S&S to hold solar hostage, I expect that injury will be found. I am hopeful that the next stage, where lobbying comes into play much more, that the remedy would be a lot more nuanced than the minimum price bullshit that Suniva proposed. Keep in mind that S&S want to take jobs away from veterans, from coal miners, from oil workers, from hardworking Americans that sit around the kitchen table wondering what is the best career for them and their kids. This is a bailout for bad business executives and has no tangible market impact that would do anything positive for the American economy, including at either petitioners company.
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And Then? And Then, and then, and then. On Friday the ITC will decide if there was serious injury to the section 201 petitioners. While we all know that this is largely a ploy to increase the value of the bankrupt assets to the lien holders, the ITC looks at it as a recourse of last resort. I.e. the ITC wants to know how Suniva and SolarWorld will be able to come back to life if they get their remedy. Until now, neither company has offered any insight to how the turn around would occur. No plan on becoming less reliant on single customers by building a dealer network, partnering with financial products, returning to bankability (good luck with that) or how to retain employees that will largely be persona non grata in the solar industry as employees of either company. This should raise serious red flags to the ITC that they are being used by foreign funds to milk the American consumer of hard earned money by making solar more expensive. No and then, just the tariff please is what they appear to be saying.
What Happened To California’s 100% RPS? Early this year, in an interview with Senator Wiener of San Francisco, we talked about SB100. The bill made it almost to the finish line getting stuck in a final committee. Reason for the hold up? A large trade union that maintains a large foothold in the withering fossil sector in California. The sad part is that solar actually has a really good union relationship across the Country. Not directly unionized, solar investors and companies use union contractors for the installation of their projects. In California more so than anywhere else, fossil power plants will be replaced by renewable energy and SB100 ensures that this change happens with some regulatory certainty.
Grow Your Customers, Utilities Need EVs. To me it is the single most obvious business move since I’ve been running companies. Utilities need more customers to buy EVs, share EVs, and use EVs on demand. This takes market share from the oil companies and grows the need for power, transmission of energy and consumer’s dependence on energy providers. Florida is an amazing example of utilities that are NOWHERE with regard to EVs, even though their demand growth is flatter than our State’s topography.
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Yann