With Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz as Secretaries, the Department of Energy (DOE) under Obama has done much good work to support advanced energy: the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), major investment in smart grid under the stimulus package, the SunShot initiative, new appliance and fuel efficiency standards, a loan guarantee program that has supported solar, wind, biofuels, nuclear, battery storage, and advanced vehicles, and more. Though the Obama Administration exhibited a favoritism towards renewable technologies, it still embraced an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. In fact, EIA data shows that natural gas production is up over 25% and at all-time high since Obama took office. And the Administration managed this diversified energy approach while still pursuing such goals as leading the world on climate change, mitigating harmful environmental pollutions from fossil fuels, and building on America’s growing energy independence.

The marathon Presidential election is over and Donald Trump is the next President. Join the podcast as Yann Brandt and Frank Andorka try to make some sense of what the election means to solar and how the industry did on the State level votes. Coverage includes what Trump’s moves could be on energy and votes in Arizona, Nevada and Florida. This is part 2 of 2.

Make sure you visit back later in the day, we have been hard at work for a week to write an important article. “7 people that President-Elect Trump should consider for Secretary of Energy” which we will be releasing sometime today.
More money, no problems. We have some news for you this morning about $500 million that went to a solar lender the morning after the Trump election. In all, almost a billion dollars went to developers and lenders this week in just two transactions. Let’s highlight the good news instead of just the trumped up pessimism we are currently surrounded by.
The constituency of 209k. A friend of SolarWakeup’s and the all around good guy got a nice write-up from The Hill yesterday. Scott Hennessey has been a solar lobbyist for a decade, starting as one of the first employees at SEIA before moving to SolarCity. Definitely worth the read.
Solar is good for all. A Boston University professor did some solar analysis in Massachusetts on an hour by hour basis. The results were interesting mostly in the wording. In the report, solar customers were found to provide value to non-solar customers while also benefitting from the infrastructure for those kWh that weren’t purchased. The balance is created using a simple but ‘wrong’ incentive structure.
Illinois shenanigans. This is a quick moving story because Illinois is in a special session, one apparently famous for pushing legislation through without much debate. The long story, in short, is that demand charges are in an SB amendment buried deep in a couple hundred pages. We will have more coverage on this but get ready to activate in Illinois, grassroots will make or break this.
Crane’s thoughts on Trump. David Crane, as an editor at large for GreenBiz, has some advice on giving Trump a chance. There are some caveats to that advice to set the expectations….not too high. The best advice in the column is a recognition that we are fortunate that this is 2016 and not 2012 because solar is in a much better place and leadership can come from the States.

Opinion

News

Have a great day!
Yann

If you measure the impact of the election on investor sentiment, take one look at the $500 million that MMA Energy Capital announced at 8am the morning after election day. On November 9th, MMA announced a new joint venture named "Renewable Energy Lending" with TSSP, a TPG platform. TSSP is a dedicated credit and special situations platform with over $18 billion of assets under management.