I’m happy to let you all know that baby #3 has arrived in the Brandt household. Don’t worry, your daily SolarWakeup will continue as I disconnect over the next few weeks but it also means that I will be missing the SPI get together in a few weeks. So I am counting on you to keep me in the loop on what is going on and who is doing what. Our work is important for all of us but more than anything our success means the world (pun intended) to our kids. So I thank you for doing your part, on behalf on #1, #2, and #3.

Have a great day!

News

 

Have a great day!
Yann

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One of the best places to get the news is through SEC filings by public companies. In our top two stories today, you get the behind the scenes view on employee matters (Terraform) and how the sausage is made in mergers (SolarCity & Tesla). As the merging companies put the motions in place to schedule their special shareholder meetings to get the needed approvals for the acquisitions, they also disclose how the talks on the acquisition got started. Interestingly, SolarCity ran somewhat of a process to see if other investors would be interested in acquiring the company or entering into another agreement. It’s rare that such a process can stay quiet in our space to hats off to Lazard for that. On the other hand, someone at Lazard apparently made a $400million error in their model. The filing for the Tesla acquisition of SolarCity is here and the employee items at Terraform is here.

Have a great day!

News

 

Have a great day!
Yann

The answer is yes! Floridians voted yesterday to fix an issue in the State constitution that will now exempt solar from commercial property taxes, this is in addition to the already existing residential property tax exemption. While commercial energy rates in the State are still low, as costs drop, the exemption should increase the amount of C&I solar that is built here. More importantly, this will exempt 3rd party owned solar in Florida from tangible property taxes and return north of 20% of potential revenues to third party owners. I don’t foresee a rush to solar by the residential companies because we have a credible issue on the ballot in November with a utility backed amendment that confuses voters into believing they are doing something good for solar. I look forward to seeing how this plays out, in the meantime IKEA in my County is going to get a pleasant tax break from their 1MW system. (NextEra also will save quite a bit of money on their 110MW solar farms they already have in place)

Have a great day!

News

 

Have a great day!
Yann