This is your SolarWakeup for August 26th, 2020
Solar Market Survey. The August survey is now available and I hope you participate in responding. This is an important Q3 checkin and outlines the Q4 opportunities ahead.
Roth Capital Market Update. Next Tuesday at 10am Easter, join me and others on the Roth Capital solar market update. You can register (free) here.
Farewell Exxon. A few years ago Exxon was the most valuable company by market cap in the world and the CEO was en route to being the Secretary of State. Now Exxon has lost over half of its market cap and removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average where it has been for 92 years. That leaves Chevron as the sole remaining oil company in the average. I’m not on a strategic committee at the oil companies but the fact that none of them have bought a utility or entered electric generation or EV infrastructure in a meaningful way is dumbfounding.
PURPA Fights In Big Sky. Solar developers have won a ruling at the Montana Supreme Court regarding their complaint that regulators didn’t follow PURPA rules when they cut the contract value and terms for qualifying facilities. I like it when solar fights go to unusual places and win.
All Eyes On Senate. The Senate released a report titled “The Case For Climate Action: Building a Clean Economy for the American People.” Obvious problem with the report is that it only comes from the Democrats in the Senate not the full body, an unfortunate sign of the times. Senator Schatz (Hawaii-D) sat down with Vox’s David Roberts to go through the report. One note to watch post November, will Senator Manchin keep his chairmanship of the Energy committee or will he be upgraded to something else. The democrats will maneuver this sensitive area because they can’t go Joshua Lyman on Senator Manchin and risk a party switch. On the other hand, Manchin is the most conservative member of the caucus and could hold up critical work on climate change if the democrats have the majority.
A Southeastern RTO. An interesting idea but with the most powerful monopolies in the Country operating in the Southeast, consider this a pipe dream (for now).
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 25th, 2020
The Need And Value Of DG To Utility Scale. Yesterday the California legislature passed SB 364, a bill that only matters if a proposition is passed by voters in November. Assuming the Governor signs the bill, which he is expected to, the bill ensures that C&I and utility scale solar are not crushed by new property taxes. This is where the value of a strong state chapter like CALSSA came in. This is why utility scale solar and distributed generation are aligned in advocacy and market development. Without the help of DG and state advocates this bill would have failed passage. It took the collective push of all to ensure success. Sometimes not all things have to directly benefit you to benefit you in the long run, if homeowners can’t put solar on their homes and business do you think they will help advance policies that allow large scale solar to be built? Will politicians help an industry that leaves their constituents behind? I hope this is an event that brings solar closer together and maybe as a sign of goodwill, brings utility scale companies into the CALSSA membership. It’s a big tent and you just saw what it’s worth to you.
The Politics Of CA Blackouts. Trump is politicizing the blackouts in California, taking the talking point of a green dream causing terrible grid harm. Grid operators have said that a 500mw plant going offline unexpectedly was the final trigger on the issues. It was the help of consumers and a call for aid from consumers to reduce consumption that kept the issues from cascading from there. The details won’t stop the White House from trying to tie renewables to instability, even regulators that know better are jumping on this and ex-Enron folks are eager to rewrite history from circa 2000.
Old Generations Versus New Price Signals. The major shift regulators need to take up immediately is a new price signal for demand reduction, to shape consumer demand in times of need. Shaping demand based on consumer behavior is a major market challenge but startups like OhmConnect have shown that given the right price signal, consumers will adapt. Pricing that allows opportunities for DG storage to operate in a distribute environment could give California over 5GW of flex capacity without the need to contract for it upfront just by providing an opportunity to generate value. This is a forward looking method as opposed to keeping existing plants ready for closure open.
Twitter Talks DOE. Less than a 100 days until the election and energy twitter is equal parts working hard to elect Biden while also giddy at the thought of filing the cabinets, especially DOE. While DOE does great work on R&D and advancing solar soft cost reductions, DOE is primarily the department of nuclear energy including being responsible for the nuclear stockpile. The EPA is where pollution, clean air and water reside but it is less powerful as an administration not department. For what it’s worth, my pick for DOE Secretary is Governor Granholm, an early adopter of solar policies and solar manufacturing in Michigan.
Buyer’s Group Price Challenge. Installers across the Country are saving money with the Buyer’s Group. Take the price challenge today.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 24th, 2020
Looking At The TVA. Every time someone in energy makes the argument that a utility should be made public as a muni or a coop I immediately think of the TVA. A public entity with a board appointed by Congress, with the highest paying position in the federal government, TVA is one of the most anti-solar utilities in the Country. This is supported by the antics of SMUD, LADWP and many others across the Country as well. The clean energy industry needs to examine the regulatory appointment process in every State and if Biden wins, look at the boards within the federal government as well. I want to be on the board of the TVA, not to be the inside solar guy but to make TVA the best run utility in the Country and be pro-solar and clean. We need our industry pros to be PSC commissioners, PSC staffers and secretaries at the state level also, the talent is here but we have to fight for it.
Worth Repeating. On Friday’s newsletter we highlighted the comments from Joe Biden in his DNC speech. It’s worth repeating on this Monday morning that climate change and the promise of clean energy jobs was prioritized to the top of the issues calendar. What solar policies do you think a Biden admin should prioritize?
Hope For The Best. This is the best way to describe the situation in California, and that’s before we talk about the wildfires. California is the first state on the mainland to push for a major energy transition and is stuck somewhere in no-man’s land. Parts of the market look deregulated with CAISO pricing and taking power away from the IOU with CCAs but then the CPUC doesn’t give purchasing power to those entities in order to price what they value. Politically, electeds in CA talk like everything should be solar and batteries with a robust demand response based pricing mechanism that shapes demand behavior based on generation but that’s nowhere near what is actually getting done. On the other hand this is not complicated to execute but regulatory capture is real. Take a look at PG&E a formerly (2x) bankrupt utility with junk credit rating convicted of multiple felonies, what did they lose when they last filed for BK from a regulatory perspective?
Buyer’s Group Price Challenge. Installers across the Country are saving money with the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. Take the price challenge today.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 21st, 2020
Climate As Top 4 Issue. Joe Biden gave his nomination acceptance speech late last night at the DNC. Standing alone in an empty arena behind a podium the former Vice President and Senator outlined the 4 great issues facing our country. A pandemic, economic downturn, racial injustice and acceleration of the climate crisis. In this SolarWakeup forum, climate is a top issue, it is our call to action so to hear it elevated to the last speech on the last day of a party convention gives me hope that the issue now has the platform we’ve been calling for. The work doesn’t end here, more work has to be done so whether your work is through Clean Energy for Biden, local campaigns or advocacy or talking about this issue to republican members, your voice is as important as ever. As Biden laid out, the climate crisis is the problem with an opportunity to create millions of great paying jobs and cause the investment of trillions of dollars.
California’s Energy PR Debate. Who is to blame for the multiple stage 3 emergencies causing rolling blackouts in California? The debate rages online. Couple of data points. The first emergency started at 7pm, yet solar is somehow to blame for this emergency. Secondly, there was more natural gas feeding the grid this Friday evening than the same Friday in the last two years. The argument is that renewable energy advocates are so powerful in California that regulators had to also cancel fossil fuel development and generation. CPUC, CAISO and CEC signed a letter stating that renewables were not to blame.
The Jobs In CleanTech. The governor of New Mexico is on Axios to talk about jobs in clean energy and I urge job training entities in solar to get themselves ready and professionalize their outreach to legislators. Solar, wind and the energy transition will cause changes that impact real people’s lives. Coal plant operators will lose jobs and so will miners and train operators for example. We must be a welcoming industry with training and great paying jobs, which I know we are, but not everyone does.
The Money In Solar. SolSystems buys $200million in North Carolina projects, Blackstone injects $300million in residential solar loans and DOE advances perovskite R&D. Not bad for a Thursday.
Batteries In Market. Yesterday you read about the LS Power battery in San Diego, the largest in the world. Based on reporting the plant only had an RA contract but operated on a merchant basis through the energy crisis. In Texas there were also several battery plants operating without existing off take agreements. It is entirely possible that the annual revenue projection in the model was achieved in a weekend.
Buyer’s Group Update. For the second week in a row the buyer’s group has doubled in size. This is a program for installers by leveraging the aggregate scale in volume which levels the playing field while returning margin to installers across the Country. Through transparent pricing that we are actively negotiating with supply chain, you can not only see the trend line but actually lower your COGS. Join today at solarwakeup.com/pricing
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 20th, 2020
More Rundown Tomorrow. First day of school made my day longer as we get back to regular scheduled programming. All the parents that are negotiating a back to school which involves tech support and multiple kids trying to sit still in front of a computer for 6 hours straight.
Buyer’s Group Update. For the second week in a row the buyer’s group has doubled in size. This is a program for installers by leveraging the aggregate scale in volume which levels the playing field while returning margin to installers across the Country. Through transparent pricing that we are actively negotiating with supply chain, you can not only see the trend line but actually lower your COGS. Join today at solarwakeup.com/pricing
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 19th, 2020
Trump Tweets Energy. “In California, Democrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts — forcing Americans in the dark. Democrats are unable to keep up with energy demand…”
Part 2. “…Meanwhile, I gave America energy independence in fact, so much energy we could never use it all. The Bernie/Biden/AOC Green New Deal plan would take California’s failed policies to every American!”
At 7pm. Friday night at 7pm it’s hard to understand how it’s solar’s fault that the grid had a shortfall in generation. The grid also generated 26GW of gas, much more than previous years on a similar Friday evening (h/t Julie Blunden for the research). The pushback from fossil folks is that regulators have been kicking out fossil generation in favor of renewables and not doing enough to shore up reliability, something that I got caught up in with on Twitter with a GA PSC commissioner pushing nukes. The reality is that unless our team gets to make the decisions on how to design the best grid, the solar industry can’t be blamed. Even in this situation, the solution is incredibly obvious with today’s technology. That’s why my frustrations have been vocal recently around taking away local resource adequacy purchasing from local CCAs and giving it to PG&E. Or ask the large scale solar operators how many times they’ve offered to add storage to existing solar plants are ridiculously low prices that would have allowed the shift to occur and cover the 7pm hour. Utilities could also contract with companies like OhmConnect to sign up millions of manual demand response participants. In short, unless we’re in charge, we can’t be blamed. That fault remains firmly with regulators for now.
Solar In Congress. In April 2019, Congressman Charlie Crist filed the Sunshine Forever Act, a bill to extend the ITC to 2029. I first met Charlie when he was the Governor of Florida and as a republican got the golden meter award from Vote Solar for an outstanding net metering policy he pushed for almost 15 years ago. That same policy is in effect today driving the second largest solar market in the Country. Tomorrow at 5pm, it would be my pleasure to have you join me as I talk about clean energy with Congressman Crist. For $20 (or more if you can) donation to Clean Energy for Biden you can be part of the discussion as well. Charlie has been a supporter of our industry for a long time and it would be great to make the event a big success.
Buyer’s Group Update. For the second week in a row the buyer’s group has doubled in size. This is a program for installers by leveraging the aggregate scale in volume which levels the playing field while returning margin to installers across the Country. Through transparent pricing that we are actively negotiating with supply chain, you can not only see the trend line but actually lower your COGS. Join today at solarwakeup.com/pricing
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 18th, 2020
The Biden Era And Climate. The current state of energy is as volatile as ever. Oil, gas and coal is in steady state of decline both in production and new generation. Coal generation as a percentage of total is down big. This is going to cause a flywheel effect that leads us to the solution that is apparent to all, renewables, storage and demand response widespread adoption. Here are some thoughts on how the Biden White House would be able to take real action on day 1, borrowing some of the successes from the Trump time. Here we go.
A National Emergency. This is the obvious one, Biden will call climate change a national emergency. This executive action triggers access to powers for the branch including the movement of funds to protect Americans against climate change. Before you blast me for exercising the unilateral executive theory, read below. This power has been litigated to the Supreme Court which allowed Trump to move money from the military for a wall. As a prerequisite this will trigger several administrative options including a reverse MOPR or at least eliminating the DOE led bailouts of coal that the Trump admin attempted but only served to create market chaos.
The Rule Of Law. Kamala Harris was a San Francisco DA when she sued local polluters taking advantage of low income communities. Across the bay, a power plant powered by jet fuel just recently came down and will be replaced with a large battery for example. Once the national emergency is declared, the EPA will use emergency inspections to find generators, drillers, pipeline operators, coal ash ponds that are not complying with environmental laws that protect your water and air, especially for the less fortunate residents. Under Harris’s guidance in collaboration with the DOJ, government lawyers will take action for immediate compliance and temporary closures. (My expectation that most coal ash ponds will be found to not be in compliance for example) This national focus on compliance with clean air act or clean water act will drive the next step.
Let’s Settle For Speed. The first thing with litigation is that everyone including the plaintiff is looking for it to end as quickly as possible. The message will be clear, the government will see this through but wants to focus on compliance and a settlement is on the table. Much like Volkswagen is providing funds for electric vehicles across the Country, polluters will be setting up the 21st century version of superfund compliance funds. This will drive training, cleanup and replacement of generation not in compliance. Some of the best renewable energy policies were found in legislative, regulatory and legal settlements. My hope is we achieve the same thing but a scale that’s never been thought of before.
California As A Bellweather. California blackouts are not caused by solar, any decent reporter would get that answer from CAISO and utility executives (if they were honest). More importantly, the energy crisis would have been exponentially worse if there was no rooftop solar which offset gigawatts of need during peak times and is not accurately tracked by grid operators. So while SMUD wants to use kindergarten math to minimize rooftop solar’s value, what the grid needs is more solar on rooftops with more batteries installed by its side. Check out the CALSSA post on the topic.
Buyer’s Group Update. For the second week in a row the buyer’s group has doubled in size. This is a program for installers by leveraging the aggregate scale in volume which levels the playing field while returning margin to installers across the Country. Through transparent pricing that we are actively negotiating with supply chain, you can not only see the trend line but actually lower your COGS. Join today at solarwakeup.com/pricing
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 17th, 2020
Why This One Matters. Today, I’ll give you the headlines of the weekend and why this election matters. First the politics. I don’t think climate change should be a partisan item, I wish that Americans could be republicans and care about climate change policies even if the policies differ from democrats. Over the past decade we’ve seen a congress that refutes climate science, renewable energy, energy efficiency and free market competition in energy production/delivery. That’s why I’m involved with Clean Energy for Biden because you will see the news over the weekend make it unavoidable, you will see rare forms of natural disasters and even learn about new ones perhaps. So join me on Thursday for a CE4B event with Congressman/Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist. I’ll be talking with him on how to tackle this issue facing us all.
The Plan. Tomorrow I will outline how the Biden/Harris administration should focus on climate change in the first 100 days and what they can do right away.
First Time In 20 Years. 2 times in as many days, the California ISO called for a stage 3 emergency and rolling blackouts. Even when the ISO lifted the emergency, PG&E continued its blackouts without notifying critical infrastructure that led to sewage entering drinking supply. High temperatures and loss of 1,500MW of central generation led to grid instability causing the emergency. The sad part is that this is avoidable and the entire regulatory complex is at fault for being captured by the utilities. As I tweeted this weekend, it’s beyond comprehension how PG&E is exactly where it was before the bankruptcy and nothing has change. This is avoidable and doesn’t require anything to get started. CAISO could contract with every homeowner that has energy storage to create a massive virtual power plant. Utilities could expand the program with OhmConnect and add a gigawatt of demand response. The governor could call for rapid solar expansion and require instant permitting across the State for residential solar plus storage, it’s on his desk as we speak. The solutions are here, we need to unwrap ourselves from this obsession we have that only PG&E and SCE can solve this problem.
Flee To Florida? Hurricane Isaias is what Floridians would call an elongated thunderstorm, Key West would party through the storm in non-COVID times. Meanwhile the infrastructure in New York and New Jersey is showing its weakness once again when it comes to hurricanes. I’ve spoken to a dozen folks from NY/NJ/CT area in the past week and they all had extended power outages. I guess it’s time to flee to Florida for when hurricanes come around. Our concrete homes, power poles and generators (solar included) will keep you running.
It’s Called A Derecho. California outages, wild fires and hurricanes aren’t the worst natural disaster in America this week. Iowa experience a derecho, a 120mph land hurricane that arrives with almost no notice. Iowans are out of power, some counties lost 80% of power and crops are destroyed across the State. Iowa is the center of attention for politics every four years and unfortunately for Iowans, the media is already gone and is not covering this. 14 million acres of crops are damaged, this will end up being experienced by all Americans when shortages reach supply chain.
For The History Books. The ice sheet in Greenland is melted beyond the point of no return. Basically more water sits on top of the ice sheet than what could melt and therefore will result in the ice sheet losing mass continuously. Our kids will read about our actions about the elusive ice sheet that has caused measurable changes in the gravitational field in Greenland today. Instead our kids will live with the measurable increase in water levels caused by the melt.
Fire Tornadoes. For good measure, a firenado.
Data Nerds. My latest podcast on data in imagery with Tim Rochman from EagleView Technologies. Catch it on your podcast app and leave us a 5 star rating.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 14th, 2020
2020 Forecasting. Wood Mackenzie analysts are doubling down on their 2020 revised forecast, saying that cash deals will be down 41%, leases down 21% and loans down by 23%. This downturn would continue through 2021. Here’s the problem with that forecast. Every major public company is telling a different story, private solar installers are reporting months well above pre-COVID and loan companies said that May was the best month in history, June beat May and July beat June. Those data points don’t compute with a down year. While we were hoping for a 25% YoY growth year, 2020 will still be bigger than 2019. I invite the analysts to join our next residential market conference call scheduled for September 1st to hear some great data points.
The Loan Market. The side point of the research spotlight is the state of the loan market. Loans are rapidly increasing in overall financings and I’d like to hear your thoughts on solar loan companies. There is a diverse set of companies offering the product so reply to this email and tell me what makes you pick your loan partner. It’s not the transparent market but maybe SolarWakeup’s mission of shining the light could be helpful.
Utilities Play EV Infra. Ten years ago I told a major IOU CEO that I thought he should ask regulators for the approval to build 10,000 charging stations across their service territory. Maybe that was a bit early but I wanted the utility to front run the demand and removing the biggest hesitation factor for consumers, where do they charge. It would have also locked up the access for the sites and maybe one day EV charging companies end up buying the land rights from gas stations. Private companies now lead the EV charging network and I can’t wait to see how the compete, partner, or rate base discussion goes.
Coal To Storage Transition. Vistra, the IPP know for fossil generation, continues to diversify into battery generation. It already announced a massive storage site in Texas and previous two projects at the former Moss Landing coal plant. Now it received approvals for a 4 hour 1,500MW site near their natural gas plant, which it says it will build once the market data allows for it.
Solar Module Waste. Hard to believe that we are at the point where the market for re/upcycling of solar modules is upon us. For me it was always a problem for another day so educate me on options available or best practices on thoughts for what can be done.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 13th, 2020
SPI Goes All Virtual. SPI was pushing to have some portion of the market meet in person until just a few days ago, trying to convince exhibitors to keep their booth space and send folks. The lingering cases, positivity rate and hospitalization surround this pandemic made their best attempts fall short. Most of us were simply unwilling to get on a plane and visit Vegas. I know that many of us can use a few days in Vegas but it will not be. The lack of SPI creates a massive hole in the SEIA budget, nearly $10million of profits from the trade shows goes into the SEIA annual budget to fund solar advocacy and there isn’t a way to make that up. Thus far, PPP funding is not allowed to flow to trade associations.
The Digital OS. Like most of you, SPI will also go virtual. We are nearly 6 months into the pandemic so it’s a good time to look at your digital pivot. What changes did you make, processes adapted in order to meet the new normal? We can now imagine and realize a touchless customer journey except for the ineptitude that most building departments have shown in using email and FaceTime to do their jobs. Some AHJs have simply delayed their processes further hindering economic recovery. Take an hour this week and meet with your leadership team to asses the digital systems you put in place, happy to write more about this if questions arise.
Through, Not Past. Moments ago I had a realization about 2020 and the pandemic. Since the start we’ve been talking about it as a temporary issue facing society and the solar market. It would come and then cases would drop enough for things to go back to normal. Instead we now realize that we are living alongside the virus through 2020 and potentially longer. Our work will adapt to it as well, every company is making masks at this point, I’ve been creating a collection of solar masks at my home with East Bay Community Energy and Utility API coming in early.
SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. Your competition is joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group, transparent pricing powered by the market. The market is maturing and this is a big part.
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Yann