Have a great weekend and don’t forget to email me if you are interested or working on storage in California. My solar + storage road show starts May 22nd. New Podcast on Monday that is amazing because I spoke with the most conservative State legislator in Florida.
Chinese manufacturing. Suniva, SolarWorld, and TenK Solar have all had issues in recent weeks and all blame cutthroat Chinese pricing on the issue. First, I wouldn’t be surprised if Chinese manufacturing has gotten really good at solar and savings are coming from the supply chain as opposed to dumping and cheap labor. Second, while the pricing has dropped more than I ever thought possible, would the companies really be in better shape if pricing was double what it is today?
Fixing competitive markets. IPPs are complaining about markets across the Country. I agree that we need more price signals and more value for quick response energy or energy that matches up to the location of the load, like air conditioning in the summer in Texas. Keep listening to the IPP CEOs because this is going to be a thing.
The Energy Storage Road Show is happened starting May 22nd in San Diego!
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SolarWorld goes Insolvent.The German parent company of SolarWorld US has filed for insolvency. A few things to consider and trust me, I don’t have any of the answers. As a publicly traded company in Germany, the standard for directors to have to file is a much lower bar than in the US. The company has been in financial turbulence in the past and must now try to restructure itself again. No statements or reporting has thus far made clear if the US entity will have to take any action or what this means for the operations here. What is likely to happen is that buyers of product will become more cautious going forward due to the financial uncertainty. One thing to note, the European markets have had a minimum price for several years and yet, this result happened. It should be clear to Commerce staffers in the US that a minimum price has not worked in the past and will only harm consumers across all markets.
Trade Questions. I don’t understand the trade cases well. I am not sure what the minimum price means, how it could or would get negotiated down from the 78 cents per watt and when it would start. Here are questions that I would want answered if I was currently running a solar company. If a minimum price is put in place, could any of my orders for modules be retroactively taxed? Who would have to pay that tariff? Would the minimum price increase the margin for imported modules? Wouldn’t this be worse than a tariff which creates a pool for local manufacturers to reinvest into new production? What has happened thus far to the tariffs collected from the first trade case? Who did it go to and how did it help?
The Energy Storage Road Show is happened starting May 22nd in San Diego!
Interesting NRG Reports. In one move, NRG could create a massive renewable energy company. Reports say that activist investors in the company are asking for the renewable energy assets to be sold off. NRG Yield is 5GW on its own plus any of the ongoing projects being added to a potential sale. So the question is, does an existing investor come in and acquire the projects or is this a perfect entry point for a private equity player to finish what NRG started?
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Storage going big time. These are welcome news as I start planning my research trip through California on the topic of energy storage. Navigant has come out with a new report saying that energy storage will be a $50billion market in 2026, which is less than 10 years away. Keep in mind that this is adjusted for the rapidly reducing hardware costs creating a 27GW market. The leading market in 2026 is expected to be Asia Pacific followed by Western Europe. The US is expected to be a $10billion market. I look forward to seeing how this lines up to what I hear from you. If you are a contractor or developer working on energy storage, please send me an email and let me know.
The FERC Gets New People. The NARUC President, a regulator from Pennsylvania, and a staffer from Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s office have been picked by the President to join the commission. NARUC applauded the selection but no word on the specific views on items related to PURPA, which is likely one of the leading topics of interest to the solar industry. According to Politico, the co-lead of Jones Day’s Global Energy practice is expected to be named next, potentially as chair.
The Energy Storage Road Show to speak with contractors and developers integrating batteries is on the calendar. San Diego area during the week of May 22nd, Los Angeles area the week of June 5th and Bay Area the week of June 19th. If your company is working on storage, hit reply and reach out directly.
Unfortunate news from TenK. News started trickling in yesterday that TenK Solar was winding down operations. A product with some innovation given the reflective racking solution. From GTM’s reporting it seems like a major problem was in the inverter and not the module part of the system. Solar hardware remains hard and creating profits through hardware innovation continues to elude most. I wish the employees all the best.
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SEIA/SEPA Complications. Yesterday I wrote about the need to bring more money to the State chapters by renegotiating with SEPA on how the revenues from SPI are split. This is a complicated topic because there is a contract between SEIA and SEPA on their JV for Solar Energy Trade Shows, LLC (SETS). I believe that SEIA should approach SEPA and ask for 25% of the total profits to go to the benefit of State SEIA chapters. (More on how later) You may not know that the Chair of SEIA’s Board of Directors, Nat Kraemer, recently stepped down as the Chair. The Acting Chair is now Tom Starrs, the VP of Market Strategy and Policy at SunPower.
How it gets Tricky, Quickly. Tom Starrs is now the acting Chair of SEIA and may run for the permanent Chair position when election happens later this year. As the VP of Policy, Starrs is also a member of the board of SEPA and has been for several years. So when it comes to renegotiating the SETS JV agreement Starrs would have a clear conflict. Given that this has gone under the radar for several years, I don’t know what the solution is. The SEIA Board appears to need an introspective review on what it stands for or what values it seeks from the members of the Board. The Board, if you recall, is a leading revenue driver for the association and allows companies to pay for a seat, somewhere north of $125k per year. I don’t have a problem with the paid for board but I do think we, as an industry, need to define central values on items like net metering for the members. Currently we have members of the Board that diverge from what many of us would consider good for all of us. Most of the time we don’t know how issues are pushed in committees by various members because small companies tend to stay out of that process, a divergence from State chapters which is a problem.
The Energy Storage Road Show for Solar Contractors & Developers in California is officially on! I will be traveling throughout California in the next 8 weeks. If you are looking at or have installed C&I and large scale energy storage, send me an email so we can get together. More specific dates coming soon but get on the list now.
What happens beyond SEPA? I’ll start with this. I don’t have a problem with SEPA or their mission but let’s be clear about their mission. This is the utility’s non-profit to access the solar industry. The board is made up of current and former utility execs and solar companies working in utility segments. Starrs was a member of the board of directors at SEPA when SEPA’s executive committee voted to reject the SEIA request to help in pushing for the extension of the ITC. Moreover, SunPower is a PowerPlus member of EEI, the group that last year was caught looking to fight solar by branding itself more cleverly and could use studies like today’s top story to define solar to consumers. I don’t know Mr. Starrs and I am not questioning his motives but the solar industry should have an acting Chair of their trade association that has no appearance of conflicts. I don’t see how we can fix our State level issues which require a negotiation with SEPA unless the direction is very clear.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. Listen to the importance of State level solar policy from Rebecca Cantwell, the executive director of COSEIA. And hear from solar entrepreneur, John Gurski, the founder of Energy Toolbase, a cloud based analytics and proposal tool.
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