11 years ago, Vice President Gore gave the commencement address at my graduation and after a brief story about sitting at Shoney’s restaurant, Al Gore gave a speech about climate change. Keep in mind that in 2005, solar, wind and climate change were far from mainstream and surely not on this college graduate’s mind. 6 months later I found myself searching for a way into the solar industry and here I am 10 years later. The reason I bring this up is because yesterday, Secretary Clinton said what we have all been saying. Renewable energy and climate change are a central decision point in this election. In atypical fashion, Secretary Clinton was an opening speaker, as she welcomed VP Gore to the stage, in Miami, just a few miles from my home. This election has evolved to say the least but for me renewable energy is the main point I bring up to any undecided voter. So ask yourself the question posed by David Crane, “What are you doing for the next four weeks?”

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Yann

I came away from the debate with only one thought. How amazingly shortsighted can Donald Trump be when he brings up Ohio’s coal workers? Ohio is a must-win for the Trump campaign and the coal talk is strong in the GOP but Ohio was a rapidly growing solar market until June of 2014. At that time, Governor Kasich signed a 2 year freeze for the State’s RPS bringing SREC values to near zero values. Even with the headwind, solar jobs outpace coal jobs by nearly 60% and will grow to double the coal sector this year. Imagine if the GOP looked at the polling regarding solar support and Governor Kasich actively sought to train more coal workers in solar. Read my full story on the topic here

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Yann

According to The Ohio Coal Association, there are 3,000 coal workers in Ohio. Their jobs are in jeopardy in a State that gets 69% of its energy from coal and is the 4^th largest consumer of coal in the Country. So the question is why are their jobs in jeopardy and what is the policy answer to the problem?

In the last policy question of the second Presidential debate, Ken Bone asked, “What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?” This was the only question about energy or climate change of the evening.

That debate was a disaster and made a Nevada/Arizona net metering hearing look normal. In all of the discourse we miss a debate on what Americans agree on like having more solar on the grid, giving consumers more choice, etc. Interestingly more utility front groups have come up recently to engage in the debate about solar energy and how subsidized it is. What I would like to discuss is how regulated monopolies have a misalignment with consumer choice and costs. I would like to talk about hedging of fuel cost curves that are used to build fossil power plants. In the next decade the energy debate will center around consumer choice, that’s the discussion that I want to have.

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Yann