I Love This Story. Oklahoma Gas and Electric gets downgraded by Moody. Yes Sir!
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Yann
Vacation mode in effect. Currently reading Back From The Dead, by the amazing Bill Walton. Back on July 5th with the next SolarWakeup.
From The Readers! Anders in WA writes. In Washington State, we are finalizing a budget that does not include new funding for solar. This is hard in our market and is a big step away from the local dedication to solar, especially given the lack of leadership in DC. Utility prices are going up fast here, but we still needed a little more support to have that safe bridge to cheaper solar and expensive grid power. Rate ranges are $0.035-$0.13/kWh. The industry will continue here, but not at the growth rate that climate change and our industry's mission requires. We will contract and jobs will be lost this year. It is sad that such a liberal State can let something so important lapse without any public concern or media coverage.
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Yann
Have a great weekend. I will be on vacation over the next few weeks but the daily newsletter will continue to come in. Expect a reduction in daily thoughts however. If you have an interesting recap of the day, feel free to send it along and it may make the headline.
Solar In Texas In Jeopardy. It’s a shame that the ultimate free market State in the US could be undone by protectionism. For years, legislators on the right have said, solar must compete on its own based on price and not subsidies. Now that it competes in a deregulated energy market, Trump could swoop in and cause a reversal of fortunes, artificially inflating the cost of solar. Texans should be up in arms and sitting in Cruz and Cornyn’s offices, fighting against a protectionist agenda.
Getting Storage To Work For You. One of the common questions on the energy storage road show was the usefulness of the ITC for storage on existing solar plants. An interesting overview from legal experts on how adding storage after a solar asset is in place can still qualify. The key is that the energy that goes into the battery comes from the solar plant. This is a technical and software issue that is best solved by connecting the battery on the DC side. I’d like ot hear your thoughts on this.
Here Comes The Scale. 10 more gigafactories! That’s a whole new level of scale that will drive the price down in a big way.
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Yann
The 201 Petition Is The Fatal Flaw. Not only was the 201 petition a bad idea it was apparently written poorly. When GTM spoke with trade lawyers, the minimum price wasn’t clearly $0.78/watt but perhaps $1.18/watt instead. Suniva didn’t like that approach and instead of admitting that either scenario hurts Americans, they called GTM bad journalists. I think that Suniva is just bad at business and think that they should withdraw their petition.
What Cities Should Do. Many mayors are leading the fight against climate change. Instead of policies, speeches or rhetoric, mayors can do a very specific thing. Most of them have a franchise agreement with a utility, a monopoly in many instances. Take that agreement and rip it up and go to the negotiating table. You control the customers for the utility and you can make sure that renewable energy is going into your neighborhood. If you don’t like what they are doing then join a coop or municipal power association.
The Blame Game. If you need a good source of info to counter your friends on facebook about how solar isn’t hurting the grid, take a look at this article. This report has been hyped up in my opinion but I do find it interesting that all of a sudden federal government needs to tell states what to do. Hypocrisy in action.
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Yann