The Value of Electricity. We take it for granted until we don’t have it. Yesterday, a nursing home 15 minutes from my house had 8 elderly patients pass away from the 90 degree heat. Most of Florida lost its power on Sunday morning and power coming back on has been slow. It has been over a decade since we lost power due to a hurricane and the value for backup was obviously misunderstood because the nursing home should have had a generator to keep its residents safe. But I don’t have a generator either, in fact only one person on my street does. The reason is the value proposition has been near zero for a long time, now the value is at its peak again. The same is true for how we build our energy infrastructure. Why would a Florida utility use wood poles that snap in half during hurricanes? The cost of everything in energy is geared to be as low as possible because we fail to value what type of energy it is. Guaranteed, renewable, backup, all things that need to be valued going forward.
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Yann
Living On A Peninsula. I spent the day yesterday driving for nearly 16 hours to get closer to my evacuated home. The benefits of living on a peninsula elude me at this moment and I think about how a disaster prone State with two highways out and limited infrastructure to bring food, water and gasoline to those trying to flee pending problems. On the highway we would see cars with 5 gallon tanks strapped to the roof because you’ll find exit upon exit with empty gas stations. Meanwhile the power is out for more than half of Florida including me. My power pole snapped in half which is strange considering I’ve been paying for storm hardening for a decade. Now the pole will get replaced again and consumers will likely be on the hook once again. Peninsula living…
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A More Diverse Solar Industry. The Solar Foundation has come out with the 2017 Diversity Study that still shows solar coming in short in comparison to the overall workforce but ahead from where we came from. I am wondering what has caused some of these statistics to become reality but will think about it some more before putting pen to paper. The comments about moving up the ladder are particularly interesting and the impact of the lack of longevity in our sector that I have seen over the years.
SPI Starts. Obviously I am not there, which was sad for the empty chair at the 11am panel yesterday. I hope it is fruitful and you get to meet all the right people. Focus on the relationships and not the immediate value that the business card yields because things move quickly in this industry. Think about how many different cards you’ve brought to SPI in your career.
The Peak Demand. The RPS is so 2007, except for the 100% RPS of course. The peak demand RPS will move the value of renewables to the peak of the customer’s demand. This will become known as the RPS for battery storage associated with renewables. Unless you are looking to wait for several years to develop renewables with a new interconnect and find offtakers, you need to add storage on your existing solar portfolio to shift your production peaks to meet this kind of requirement which will carry great value. Get used to me talking about dc coupling storage more often, I am infatuated with what solar with dc-storage will do to our industry.
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Hurricane Irma. Not going to lie, the images I am getting sent to me are bad. Videos from Miami and Keys are absolutely terrifying and my neighborhood may be without power for several weeks. Power poles are snapped in half and we are far from a priority grid. I’ve been in Atlanta for a few days and will remain here until it is safe to head home. As you enjoy SPI, I hope you remember that our mission is to be successful financially but also that our industry’s success means that we change the way we generate energy so we can turn back the clocks on climate change. Anything short of shutting down coal plants tomorrow is a scientific and intellectual failure. The transition to a renewable future needs to be fast tracked because 2 storms have tormented the southeast, wild fires the west and Hurricane Jose has its eyes set on the northeast.
The Real Energy Storage Story. I was coming to SPI to speak with many of you about the work I have spent a lot of time on for the past several months and will continue to. Solar is a generating asset that creates energy that must go somewhere and why we need those upfront PPAs to finance the assets. Going forward, every solar asset will have storage attached to it even if not installed right away. This includes assets already operating. Storage needs to be installed as a DC coupled asset to make the solar asset more valuable. It is more complex and storage companies don’t understand how solar financing works. That is why I am spending time educating and developing these DC coupled energy storage projects because we must turn solar into a smarter generator. A lot more to come on this but if DC coupling is of interest to you, reach out.
Solar In A Trump Era. I was scheduled to speak this morning about how to communicate solar in this political era. With the tariff language going to Axios again, I would have expected much of our conversation to be about that. I was looking forward to sharing my ideas on how we become more of an industry that speaks to our customers and turning them into our advocates. We market too much to ourselves that we forget the hundred million plus Americans that support us. More stories about oil workers and coal miners that go to work in solar and less about the newest solar cell.
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Yann