Myron Ebell Speaks. The environment hating, former EPA transition head, Myron Ebell spoke to reporters in London yesterday. Not that energy is at the top of mind in the White House right now, but Ebell confirmed that the administration will seek to withdraw from the Paris deal. Some reports say that a member of the agreement has to give a 4 year notice prior to doing so.
Love solar in 49 and a half States. This is the best way to change a corporations’ views. It is no secret that the regulated subsidiary of NextEra, FP&L, has been rather anti-solar and even supporting an anti-solar amendment in November to the tune of millions. But the corporate has been going gangbusters with wind&solar. Many of you count NEE as a client and often walk a fine line on this topic.
I’ve seen this line. I haven’t been in many module assembly factories but during the early craze of the Ontario FIT, I had the chance to visit Celestica. Not for the assembly line but because Celestica was also assembling Advanced Energy’s inverters so they could be compliant with Made in Ontario rules. It seems like the requirements and demand in Ontario have made this work no longer financially viable so Celestica will get out of the business. End of a chapter when it comes to Ontario solar, but mostly because the rules were rather silly to begin with.
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Yann
Moving On! As you all know, I have spent the last two years working at Conergy. I have thoroughly enjoyed the work, its challenges and leading the Americas team and now it is time for new opportunities. Late last year I left Conergy and took some much needed time off. I remain available to you all at my SolarWakeup email address and look forward to staying in touch with you.
It’s all clickbait. I get the obsession. Writers have editors that have business owners. The ad folks are just focusing on the metrics of sessions and clicks to drive up revenues. No doubt that a crazy headline can drive you to want to click and read something. It’s frustrating for me because I make sure to spend the time to give you articles that actually have relevance but I fail you sometimes. To date I have never had ads on SolarWakeup so my obsession with clicks is based on wanting to get bigger and better. Trust your article flow, and clickbait wont impact you.
Sigh. Probably the best tweet to date, Elon Musk wrote the single word. As Bryan and I discussed, legitimizing crazy stuff and getting caught in the messaging will be bad for your ability to cause change. Also things slow down after the initial whirlwind (typically) mostly because the bureaucracy is meant to move slow.
FERC gets a chair. LaFleur will be the interim chair of FERC until more members are selected and approved by the Senate. PV-Magazine has it that Senate Majority Leader’s Energy Advisor could get the nod as the next Chair. Keep your eye out on PURPA as the commission convenes.
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Yann
These are the top 10 most read solar articles by your peers this week!
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The Top 10 is ranked by the number of SolarWakeup.com readers that clicked on the news article during the previous week. It is the poll of the most relevant solar news of the week as judged by your colleagues and competitors.
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Yann
Elon Goes to Washington. Elon was seen in the White House this week with some decent seating given the other CEOs around the table. While clean energy and electric cars aren’t aligned with the Trump White House, making cars, batteries and solar panels in the US surely is. Working on aging infrastructure also aligns with the interests the administration has. Elon also came out and supported Rex Tillerson for State this week in a tweet to reporter Dana Hull. Tillerson had previously supported a carbon tax and during his nomination hearings was supportive of solving climate change through engineering, a favorite of Musk.
EU goes anti tariffs. Wow! Sometimes voting politicians push back against staff and this time the EU members have. They voted against the proposed two year extension of the tariffs on Chinese modules. Now staff will have to go back and figure out an alternative plan. Led by the UK delegation, which makes sense because they just had a massive investment into solar that could not be cut tremendously if modules were allowed to enter the markets without duties or tariffs.
Tough to be a supplier. As with the global market data, suppliers also have the issue of contracting financials in an expanding market. With costs coming down rapidly, manufacturers have to figure out a way to cut their spending because revenues are dropping without margins going up. Several markets in the US are now well below $1/watt installed and a ton of markets globally are well into the $0.80’s. That doesn’t leave a room for anyone to make money but does bode well for the markets that are seeing solar at 4 and 5 cents per kWh. Keep your eyes on the next India auction as those prices should get rather crazy.
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Yann