This is your SolarWakeup for September 10th, 2020
Seeing Red. Pictures out of the Bay Area were daunting yesterday, not reminding me of my home for the past 2 years. This is the planet’s reminder that whether we believe in climate change or not, it’s here and we need to do more. It was enough to get Obama to tweet about the fires yesterday.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 9th, 2020
‘Green’ Transport. Uber announced that it was following Lyft into 100% electric vehicles by 2030 and carbon goals a few years later. For drivers that have an electric vehicle, Uber will pay them an extra $1.50 per ride as an incentive as part of a $800million push to enable drivers to make the switch. I’m sure this will also include a riders option to request a ‘green’ ride maybe for an extra fee to urge the demand to come along. For new readers wondering why we cover electric vehicle adoption, especially at this scale, it’s because it changes the demand for solar. As grid demand increases due to oil to electric shift in transportation, solar will make up a significant portion of that gap.
The Pipeline. In the next few years there will be a great understanding of the enormous pipeline that solar and storage has built in interconnection applications. Overnight, gigawatts of solar and storage could be built for less than 5 cents per kWh in almost every market across the Country. That optionality, when grid operators understand the magnitude, should be explained to lawmakers in greater detail especially as folks urge the risks of a new energy system by shouting ‘look at California’ every opportunity they can. How many GW of interconnection applications are viable across the Country?
Deployment Not Tech. I’ve never heard the term technology gap before but the sentiment remains the same. By focusing the lawmakers and regulators on research and development as opposed to mass deployment, you delay the actual success of the plan to achieve certain goals. R&D is vital and needs to continue including at greater levels, but the way to get to cheaper solar plus storage and great innovation on efficiencies is through scale. That’s how we went from 200watt to 350watt solar modules from $4/watt to $0.40/watt in less than 15 years. Utilities saying that we can’t get to goals without a leap in tech are hoping for a few more quarters of rate base, just look at Dominion’s request to get an 80 year extension on a nuclear plant.
Revisit Shareholder Pressure. GTM has a good story looking back on Blackrock’s climate push as shareholders. This includes the notice it put many corporations on that were falling behind on reaching climate goals or moving into a more sustainable direction.
Join The Buyer’s Group. Residential installers should be taking advantage of the 20%+ savings in the buyer’s group with new products added last week and more coming. You can fill out the price discovery and get a 1-week trial if you do.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 8th, 2020
Power Crisis Part 2. California entered the weekend with a heat wave reaching record temperatures across the state causing grid operators to ask consumers to lower consumption as much as possible. There was no reporting about any widespread outages because Californians responded and a massive buildout of distributed generation helped the distribution networks. This isn’t how it should be done, the grid has a reserve margin and if that margin isn’t being met then the operator needs to increase the reserve threshold. Moreover, consumers shouldn’t have to be philanthropic participants to the transaction. If the grid needs their action, that should be a transaction with financial value. The utilities have the responsibility to serve and came close to failing once again, but don’t wait long to see the failure.
Heat Waves, Fires, Outages. The heat waves caused a power crisis, someone will have to do a dumb it down version on why heat waves (on weekends) cause an undersupply but I digress. About 10 minutes before I started writing this, PG&E announced it would cut power to 172,000 accounts in 22 counties due to low moisture and high temperature environment that is conducive to wild fires. How in the world is that utility still operational? It’s early September and fires are burning in large numbers, the last thing that folks should worry about is losing power in addition to all of the other concerns they are facing. The Bay Area is consumed by smoky conditions at unhealthy levels, no electricity means no circulation or worse if your health conditions require medical devices. Ratepayers in California pay some of the highest rates in the Country and deserve better service for their investments. This is a problem with transmission infrastructure, which is causing the utility to shut off power. Remember that for the paragraph below.
Nationalize This. Here is a tweet from the Secretary of Energy, who never missed an opportunity to make his point and desire to return to the 20th century. The key quote “He [Sec. of Energy] also encourages policymakers to evaluate why the grid is not able to handle extreme stress, which could be alleviated with the support of greater caseload power generation and natural gas supply.” This was in response to the state’s request for federal intervention, clearly a moment of need and not a moment to get a backhanded comment.
Fixed Electricity Price. Here is your question of the day. Why is our electricity price a fixed rate, especially for IOUs? Competitive markets would do a better job of creating the types of behavior the grid needs to be resilient, resilience can’t just happen on the generation side of the ledger. We talk about this and more in this week’s podcast which posts later this week.
Join The Buyer’s Group. Residential installers should be taking advantage of the 20%+ savings in the buyer’s group with new products added last week and more coming. You can fill out the price discovery and get a 1-week trial if you do.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 4th, 2020
The Trade Association Consolidation. Bloomberg’s Brian Eckhouse has the reporting that a new trade association is forming out of AWEA, the national wind association. American Clean Power Association. Founding members include NextEra, Berkshire Hathaway and Avangrid. The idea is to consolidate the message around clean energy without regard to the source of the fuel, planning to represent all sources including solar.
SEIA’s Decision, Position. If you are in the solar industry, you should thank SEIA’s leadership for not joining the new group. Sources over the past year have been telling SolarWakeup that SEIA was discussing the option of being part of the new association. While I think we have gone beyond the fight between RE sources (see West Wing episode), how would an all source association advocate for net metering policies in California for example or deciding whether QF facilities should be 10 or 50MW. More importantly the new association, in my opinion, represents the status quo and leaves no room for getting involved in energy choice discussions or fighting IRP filings given the fox is in the henhouse. The political power for clean energy is in solar because everyone has the ability to participate, you can put a panel on your RV, 20 on your home or build out a 1GW solar farm. This is a tough year for associations that lost their revenue streams in trade shows, didn’t qualify for PPP and companies struggle to pay their fees, SEIA still bet on the future of solar by staying the course alone.
The Best Blackout TicToc. When the lights went out in California, and more importantly when they didn’t (but almost), a lot of factors came into play. This quote from CALSSA’s leader sums it up, “They were texting and emailing and calling us: ‘We need all of your battery customers giving us power,’” said Bernadette Del Chiaro. Grid operators had no plan on how to activate the distributed resources across the State and no way to send a market signal to create value for homeowners discharging their batteries. The resiliency ended up showing up out of goodwill from homeowners while an unnamed natural gas plant went offline when it was being counted on. This is part of the reason this publication has written at length about price signals for distributed resources and giving local RA procurement control to the operators closest to the capacity. Residential solar and storage can now provide up to 530MW of capacity and that’s over 1GW next year and growing. Add that with demand response operated by companies like OhmConnect and a real plan could provide over 2GW on demand.
Clean Jobs Good Jobs. I think everyone that works in solar loves their job. Loving your job doesn’t mean you don’t aspire for more but you love what you do and the impact it has on society. I’d love to see a Polaroid campaign of you and your employees/colleagues that says why you love your job.
The Savings Commence. Yesterday, an installer saved over $10,000 buying modules through the Buyer’s Group, it costs you money not taking a look and calculating your savings. If you’re curious about our price list, hit reply or take the price discovery.
Sell More Solar with CollectiveSun. My friends at CollectiveSun know Nonprofits. They know that Nonprofits are looking for three things when going solar: a simple and user friendly process, the ability to utilize tax benefits, and access to funding that doesn’t break the bank. CollectiveSun can help you give them all that and more. These days, more than ever, Nonprofits are looking to lower their operating expenses. CollectiveSun will help you generate more sales and will work with you to become the go-to solar installer for Nonprofits. Click here to learn more about working with CollectiveSun.
Have a great weekend!
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 3rd, 2020
Duke’s IRP. Duke filed their IRP and gave regulators a menu of options to choose from but in many ways is telling the story that they want to tell. The way it reads to me is this, let us build more gas, stop our coal plants when we want and we’ll do some solar and storage along the way. Less gas and closed coal means big expensive options for consumers is the headline that the utility wants to see in the news. Good thing for consumers and the solar market is that solar advocates are becoming experts in IRP dockets. This is the opening salvo, watch this space for more updates along the way. I even heard rumors that advocates are doing a special website to cover this.
A Regulators View On CA. Former FERC commissioner, Cheryl LaFleur, breaks down the energy situation in California in 5 categories. This is a macro view of the problem without delving into some of the micro issues that have riled up energy twitter or when Trump talks about the topic. The counterpoint comes from Sunrun’s Lynn Jurich on the impact resi solar can have.
The Fallout. This is the decision we have to make in this decade. Solve the problems on our grid with more resilient infrastructure close to the demand or leave generation in place that has already reached the end of its useful life. Microgrids versus capacity contract extensions, that’s the argument in a nutshell.
Benefits Of Retail Energy. Here is what happens when you combine Peter Thiel, bitcoin, data center, heat wave, no wind and competitive power markets. A bitcoin mine back by Thiel in Texas had a clause in their retail energy contract that let it sell back their energy by powering down their consumption and reap the benefits from the trade. Funny story of the day.
The Savings Commence. Yesterday, an installer saved over $10,000 buying modules through the Buyer’s Group, it costs you money not taking a look and calculating your savings. If you’re curious about our price list, hit reply or take the price discovery.
Sell More Solar with CollectiveSun. My friends at CollectiveSun know Nonprofits. They know that Nonprofits are looking for three things when going solar: a simple and user friendly process, the ability to utilize tax benefits, and access to funding that doesn’t break the bank. CollectiveSun can help you give them all that and more. These days, more than ever, Nonprofits are looking to lower their operating expenses. CollectiveSun will help you generate more sales and will work with you to become the go-to solar installer for Nonprofits. Click here to learn more about working with CollectiveSun.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 2nd, 2020
Storage For Big Dollars. NextEra has changed over the years and will now be going all in on energy storage to the tunes of billions of dollars. As FERC 841 gets implemented look to storage to make innovation happen not only on the technology side but capital deployment, trading and policy fronts as well.
Win Then Govern. You can’t govern until you’ve won the election, this is one of the biggest sins of campaigns that never get to govern. Climate change activists wants a hard commitment from Joe Biden to ban fossil fuel reps in the administration and take stronger stances against fossil fuels during the campaign. Here’s what I would recommend instead, be involved in the campaign or support group like Clean Energy for Biden and then apply for the job yourself. Not every fossil fuel rep is Scott Pruitt or Rick Perry, we have former folks from natural gas in solar today, coal workers on rooftops and subprime bond originators in project finance. No purity tests for me, win first and then advocate for change from the inside.
The Southeast RTO. Next week’s podcast will be with the author of the report on the benefits of having a power market in the Southeast. What is most interesting about the concept to you and what questions do you want the answers to?
New Products, Better Pricing. The SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group has an updated price list for members now available saving them money and giving them price transparency on products they buy every day. If you’re curious about joining, hit reply or take the price challenge.
Sell More Solar with CollectiveSun. My friends at CollectiveSun know Nonprofits. They know that Nonprofits are looking for three things when going solar: a simple and user friendly process, the ability to utilize tax benefits, and access to funding that doesn’t break the bank. CollectiveSun can help you give them all that and more. These days, more than ever, Nonprofits are looking to lower their operating expenses. CollectiveSun will help you generate more sales and will work with you to become the go-to solar installer for Nonprofits. Click here to learn more about working with CollectiveSun.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 1st, 2020
Quick Rundown. It was my youngest 4th birthday yesterday and my day got away from me so here’s some thoughts for the day. All of your marketing teams should be sending news to SolarWakeup when great things happen at your company.
Shorting The Planet. The EPA is basically making coal generation a market without any rules. It would seem to me that any operator would not follow the new rules knowing that eventually this will come back to haunt them, something that I’ll mention in the paragraph below and have written about in the past.
Who Bans Fracking. Biden, in his speech yesterday, said he does not want to ban fracking. Banning fracking is bad politics to begin with, it’s also as silly politically as banning nuclear given that the markets are going to make away with it. Before you throw me into environmental jail, Biden didn’t say that he wouldn’t direct the EPA, DOJ and regulators to ensure strict adherence to existing and new environmental regulations. Leaky methane from the wells? Clean it up. Contaminated water wells? Clean it up. If you can’t, don’t or won’t then the admin is coming for you. My two cents on this.
The Pipelines In Waiting. The headline in Pennsylvania is replaceable for every State in America. Solar and storage development pipelines are growing and it would be great to have legislators understand how to clear those pipeline and get the projects in the ground. Pennsylvania is a good example of how very little legislative action would do a lot to get into the right direction.
Retail Energy Plus PPA. What happens when you sign a C&I customer up to a retail energy contract, PPA for solar and onsite generator in the same deal? Find out in my latest podcast.
Sell More Solar with CollectiveSun. My friends at CollectiveSun know Nonprofits. They know that Nonprofits are looking for three things when going solar: a simple and user friendly process, the ability to utilize tax benefits, and access to funding that doesn’t break the bank. CollectiveSun can help you give them all that and more. These days, more than ever, Nonprofits are looking to lower their operating expenses. CollectiveSun will help you generate more sales and will work with you to become the go-to solar installer for Nonprofits. Click here to learn more about working with CollectiveSun.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 31st, 2020
Solar Market Survey. Last day to Take The Survey Make sure that your situation is part of the poll. You can hear the results on the market update call tomorrow morning at 10am, register for that here.
NEM 3.0 In Your Inbox. The CPUC Is taking up net metering in a new docket. This isn’t a surprise but kicks off the yearlong fight over solar’s role in the California grid. Utilities are already pushing phone op-eds and arguments while the value of DG has never been great and more apparent in the State hammed by wildfires and grid issues. Stay tuned for more on this as the year moves on.
The C&I Riddle. In this week’s podcast I talk with the CEO of Catalyst Power, a returning guest to SolarWakeup. Catalyst is backed by BP Energy Partners and is taking their knowledge of retail energy for C&I customers and adding solar and on-site generation to their offering. By combining retail energy services with onsite generation, Catalyst says they can finance more projects more efficiently, hedging their risk while maximizing value to the building owner.
Maine Is For Solar. The infrastructure team at the Carlyle group is in for a 100MW+ project in Maine. Latitudes in Maine can reach the northernmost in the continental US and be north of Montreal. We are reaching a geographic saturation when it comes to where you can develop solar. Someone do the analysis for me on Alaska, what would a QF contract have to look to make that happen?
DG Value Stacking. This publication has written about the real reason we think net metering is the right way to make solar work for homeowners, it’s not the rate it’s the simplicity. In reality, if distributed solar and storage were able to capture and/or participate in value creation in dynamic markets, rooftop solar would actually generate far more than it does under net metering. For every cost the grid assumes for hosting dg solar, it generates twice the value that is neither counter or monetized. It took many years for solar to get to this cost standpoint but now that the cost is below other generation, a free market that prices all the layers is ideal for the industry.
Big EV Times Two. CPUC approves a half of a billion for EV infrastructure and Amazon order 1,800 electric vans from Mercedes. We’re done with pilot programs?
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 28th, 2020
Solar Market Survey. Please take 3 minutes and fill out our survey looking at the current state of the solar market. Take The Survey Survey ends on Monday, your participation is valuable.
Dream Job In Solar. HR pros in solar that want to work for a great team while tackling the issues of our times like climate and inequality. Vote Solar is hiring a director of talent and culture, you can see the job description and apply here.
The SunPower Spin. SunPower and Maxeon have completed their spin-off and are now separate companies trading on the public markets, SPWR and MAXN. Now SunPower starts its path to competing in the Sunrun, Sunnova and Vivint Solar track of public companies, best of luck to the SunPower team in the new era.
Bailey Bridge Of Gas. It seems that we are acknowledging the end of coal and moving to a discussion about the future of gas. Here is the CEO of ConEd Wednesday, “We made those investments five to seven years ago, and at that time we — and frankly many others — viewed natural gas as having a fairly large role in the transition to the clean energy economy," McAvoy said. "That view has largely changed, and natural gas, while it can provide emissions reductions, is no longer ... part of the longer-term view," particularly in the U.S. Northeast where state regulators have blocked pipeline projects.” Add the report out of LA that the single gas plant has been leaking methane for several years at the rate of 30,000 cars. The discussion of gas as part of the future portfolio is upon us.
Climate And A Second Term. This is meant to be inflammatory and a single issue discussion that I’d like to have someone take the opposite side of. What happens to the fight against climate change under a second Trump term? We’ve seen the FERC policies that were pushed to prop up coal and nuclear in the MOPR. An ITC extension squashed by this White House. We’ve seen environmental rules challenged or removed. A push to drill in ANWR and off the coast of Florida. In solar, the market has grown in spite of tariff on tariff that has doubled the cost of solar modules, increased the cost on inverters and racking. Meanwhile racking manufacturing is leaving the US not coming back and inverter factories are just moving to a different offshore Country. As I said yesterday, solar should be supported by both parties but that is not the case and is not, in my opinion, something that Trump wants to see more of. When it comes to fighting climate change and creating millions of jobs in our sectors, a second Trump term will be troubling.
Have a great weekend!
Buyer’s Group Price Challenge. Installers across the Country are saving money with the Buyer’s Group, like modules under $0.40/watt. Take the price challenge today and discover your savings.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 27th, 2020
Solar Market Survey. Please take 3 minutes and fill out our survey looking at the current state of the solar market. Take The Survey
Watching Hurricane Laura. In a nearly identical track to Hurricane Katrina (Laura is sparing South Florida), a massive category 4 hurricane with a storm surge described as unsurvivable by the national hurricane center is hitting the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana. The surge has a chance of reaching 30 miles inland which makes me ponder the idea of living 0.25 miles from the Altantic. I hope those of you reading this in the path of the storm are preparing yourself and doing what you can to stay safe, we’ll be here for you afterwards. Next week, there will be talk about the need for infrastructure that is distributed because we will also see the images of thousands of utility trucks heading to the region for mutual aid and rebuilding the wood poles that we can our electric infrastructure.
My Hope, Via Miami Mayor. The Mayor of Miami is a republican which isn’t notable by itself. What is notable is that Mayor Suarez went on Axios yesterday and said that the republican party needs to change its position on the environment. You can’t look at hurricane Laura and think what if that hits Miami today, Hurricane Andrew was a wind event but if that happened today the water damage would be catastrophic and the Mayor knows that. So I ask this, what is it going to take for national republicans to stand up and say that we need to put solar on every home in America?
The Northeastern Response To Blackouts. After a storm that is out of the control of a utility, southern states are used to losing power for days or weeks. Everyone knows it could happen and that’s why homes on hospital grids go for more money. No regulator or even consumer blames the utility so it was a surprise to me to see Governors of New York and Connecticut be outraged at the utility response to Hurricane Isaias. Maybe utilities should do more planning and include disaster mitigation and response in their IRP which would likely yield better investments.
Solar Plus Plus Plus. Wildfires, snow storms, hurricanes, heat wave are just a few of the big items that seem to be pushing our grid to the edge. When the connection between your house or apartment to the wood pole outside breaks, you are on your own. Your food goes bad, medical devices go on critical backup and you can no longer cool your home. We reached a million solar rooftops in California late last year and CALSSA embarked on a million solar batteries earlier this year but the future is well above 1 million given the external factors facing us today and the tailwind of regulator support that calls for more deployment of distributed resource. Much more on this coming.
Roth Capital Market Update. Next Tuesday at 10am Eastern, join me and others on the Roth Capital solar market update. You can register here.
Buyer’s Group Price Challenge. Installers across the Country are saving money with the Buyer’s Group, like modules under $0.40/watt. Take the price challenge today and discover your savings.
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann