This is your SolarWakeup for April 16th, 2019
Enphase Registers SunPower’s ENPH Shares. Last year, Enphase acquired the micro inverter business and IP from SunPower for some cash and stock while also receiving a 5 year supply agreement. (This is all in the public filings) SunPower’s shares are now registered by Enphase which means that SunPower could sell the shares if they wish.
Winning The States Though. Axios’ Amy Harder is right that Trump and Perry have tried quite a few tricks to help out nuclear energy. I would also say that State’s have done quite a bit that the DC folks would be supportive of including last week in Ohio which follows New York, New Jersey, Illinois and more. Rick Perry did head down to Georgia with over $3billion in the form of Solyndra loan guarantee dollars for the nuclear plant at Vogtle, over 6x the amount that Solyndra received.
Warren Goes Full Transition. Senator Warren has no more patience for the energy transition and is out with a public lands policy plan. The MA Senator is often out front with policy proposals and this one would halt new leases for drilling of any type while looking to increase renewable energy generation on public lands tenfold.
Inverse Condemnation. The PG&E saga’s next step happened today with the release of Governor Newsom’s Wildfire strike force plan. The 59 page document highlights the risks and costs of wildfires while also saying that something needs to happen with the financial risk caused by the natural disasters, regardless who causes them. The report also says that PG&E needs to do better and withholds an outright endorsement of the inverse condemnation which would pass the risk to consumers and taxpayers instead of shareholders. First, this is largely a reality because a regulated monopoly is almost worthless to the ecosystem without a good credit rating which at this point requires indemnity from wildfire risk. Second, with the political reality that this is bound to happen, I ask again, what is solar going to extract from this bailout of massive proportion?
Subscribe To The Pod. Make sure to go to your Apple Podcast app and subscribe to the SolarWakeup podcast and listen to the latest episode. Three new episodes are releasing this week alone and more to come!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 15th, 2019
New Pod, Thomas Byrne. Catch today’s episode with CleanCapital’s Thomas Byrne which we recorded at SolarWakeup Live. We talk about their business focus on small(er) solar and how they are scaling that.
Join The 100 Club. Governor Inslee is getting a little bump for his media strategy with the WA legislature sending the 100% RPS bill to his desk. It is largely expected that Inslee will be signing the bill since climate change is his main issue for his presidential campaign. Personally, I’ve been waiting for a candidate to get on the debate stage and talk climate change for every question. Jobs, national security, refugee crisis, foreign policy, they all lead to climate change. Inslee isn’t at 65,000 donors yet so if you want to hear him on stage, go ahead an donate $1 to his number up.
Illinois Lottery. Did you win? Now that the block grant awards are out, what happens to the projects that didn’t get their award? Will the legislature look to act on the pipeline that is ready to build?
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 12th, 2019
Apple Pushes Suppliers. Apple is moving its suppliers to add renewable energy for at least the amount of energy used to make the parts that go to Apple. This is a great type of leadership, by creating a prerequisite to get some of the business. Other big buyers should follow their lead here. I’d be interested in knowing if Apple helps the suppliers accomplish the goals through expertise or even outsourced purchasing.
Climate Politics Should Be Non-Compromising. There is some talk this week that the Green New Deal has accomplished its goals since some fringe republicans are coming out with their ‘climate’ plans. That is total nonsense, there is no sense in debating policy in public with other legislators or negotiating non existent bills. Also, the only person that should be negotiated with is Senator McConnell. Until then, make your case to the American public.
Run On Climate. Tom Friedman of the NY Times is saying that politicians should run on climate and I agree, but so do the polls. It’s been true for awhile that climate change, clean air and clean water does really well with voters, especially independents. Even more, the pivot from jobs to solar is easy. The pivot from corporate monopolies (utilities poll terribly) to solar is easy. If you’re going to run on something, run on solar.
Corporate Access To Lower Costs. More on the Apple comment from above. How can we make the access to solar easier and more standardized for other corporations? If a supplier is looking to have solar in order to make their company stand out, what is the cheapest way for them to accomplish that?
Question For You. Yesterday I wrote about the revenue put which made me ponder something. If your current debt is coming in at 1.3 DSCR and you can buy a product that gets you closer to a 1.1 ratio, what consideration would make you reject the higher debt level?
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 11th, 2019
Stop The BS. Sometimes I don’t point out articles that are filled with bias especially when a position of influence is used to portray a motive as an opinion. First, there is no reality where solar or wind are better off without the tax credit. Second, if you think that your sponsor capital will be cheaper without the tax equity structure, don’t use it. There are some in solar that think that the ITC going away will make financing easier, those people should go sell mortgages. Others are afraid that solar asking for the ITC and not getting the extension would be a failure. I look at it more pragmatically. I want the ITC to be as close to 100% as possible. I want it to last in perpetuity if I can influence that legislation. If I were writing an article purely based on motive, I would ask for a 50% ITC with a cap of $20k. It would shave the cost of the ITC by 90% to the taxpayer and residential would thrive. Except that this market requires us all to be on the same page, creating volume for the same supply chain and creating funding for the associations that lobby for our market to exist. If you have an urge to write an opinion piece on the topic, send an email to your college roommate that promptly throws it away.
You Have To Fight, For Your Right. The California Senate passed the Solar Bill of Rights through committee by a vote of 11-0. The nice part about it is that the legislative support largely came from the homeowners that bought solar from installers. This is a proof of concept that could catapult the Solar Rights Alliance into great funding opportunities and more coverage across the Country.
Cheaper Debt Is Good. Few things get me excited as much as lower coverage ratios. Every time I see debt closings use the revenue put from kWh Analytics I think of the other things that could also make solar projects get more capital efficient.
MidWest Solar. Catch me at the upcoming Midwest Solar Expo where I’ll be sitting with State PUC Commissioner, Katie Sieben and a great conversation with an executive from Xcel Energy. I will also be attending The Energy Fair for their 30th anniversary, this will be a special interview with a great speaker we will reveal soon!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 10th, 2019
Absent a column today, check out these great solar communications jobs. If you are hiring, send the link to the job to me and I’ll give you a shoutout.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 9th, 2019
Quick recap today as the day job takes over my day today.
Covering Climate Politics. Congrats to Julia Pyper of GTM who is venturing out to contributing editor and focus on her Poli Climate podcast alongside her co-hosts. They will be focusing on climate issues in politics leading up to the 2020 election. Supported by Schwarzenegger’s institute and Leonardo DiCaprio’s foundation, the podcast will be covering an important topic in an important time.
I Lose You Lose. Duke wants ratepayers to pay for coal ash cleanup. I have a question about the regulated monopolies. Are there any costs that consumers shouldn’t pay for? At what point do shareholders bear some risk of capital loss? This can’t be a guaranteed growth of capital investment, that’s not a monopoly anymore. That’s privatized government.
Grid Operators Speak Out. Interesting view on a renewable grid in the UK. National Grid is playing lots of cards in the energy deck on multiple continents, that could make for a fun board room at times.
PURPA In Big Sky Country. No-one really wants to open up the PURPA law but maybe the decades old law needs to be reformed so that there is clarity and certainty across the Country.
MD Win. The House in Maryland passed the 50% RPS yesterday. Ball goes to Governor Hogan, let’s see what he does.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 8th, 2019
Tax Credit News. Last week was a big week for clean energy incentives with two separate events. First, a bill was filed to add energy storage to the ITC eligibility on a standalone basis. This has been a long requested change in definition by the solar industry. More importantly, over 100 member of the house democratic caucus signed a letter to Chairman Neal asking for amongst other things for an extension of the ITC.
Be Real. With Democrats in charge of the House, any spending bill would need the votes of the House and now a large faction is stating their ask. The clean energy industries also came out in support of the letter. Nothing will happen immediately but keep this in mind as we get into spending season after recess. This type of omnibus spending bill is what got the last ITC extension to become reality.
Replacing Power Plants. Los Angeles is looking to find their way into a renewable future and while LADWP and local politics make it complicate, I give major kudos to Sunrun for offering another plan forward. 75,000 homes with solar and backup power would double the residential solar in LA and offset one of the power plants. To change the status quo barriers to be broken and the technical envelope needs to pushed which means that the keepers of the status quo need as much input as possible to show them what is doable. As of late, Sunrun has been doing a lot of glass shattering with their capacity auction win in ISO-NE with the help of National Grid Ventures, pay equity and their impact report. This helps everyone in the residential market, myself included, as the market is a rising tide floats all boats environment.
Fixing C&I Credit. Check out the new concept for credit security in the C&I market. This was one of the SunShot award winners a few years ago that I found rather interesting, especially if they can commercialize and scale.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 5th, 2019
Weekend NCAA Fun. Adam Cavitt is one of the competitors in the SolarWakeup Bracket Challenge and he’s an elite picker of NCAA games. He has 3 of the 4 Final Four teams (I have zero) and he has Virginia winning it all. This puts him in the top 5,000 pickers out of 17million. One bracket does have Texas Tech winning it all so that should make for an interesting weekend.
Have a great weekend and talk to you again on Monday!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 4th, 2019
PG&E Says, Kick Rocks. As expected, PG&E has named Bill Johnson as the CEO and ‘refreshed’ the board of directors. The only name remotely associated with associated with clean energy is a board member of NextGen Climate. Vote Solar came out with statement where Adam Browning said, “White we need a renewable energy leader, TVA, under Bill Johnson’s leadership, is a renewable energy laggard.” PG&E came back with a soft defense of the climate progress by TVA which any solar installer in the territory could easily refute. The most telling aspect of this is the comment from someone that was friendly to PG&E last session. PG&E looks to be taking the approach of most monopolies and expects everyone to get on board with their plan and they will not get on board with anyone else’s.
CCAs Making A Play. The California Community Choice Aggregators are coming together and offering an option to the legislators that want option b instead of bailing out PG&E. The CCAs are saying that PG&E should become a ‘wires-only’ business and let the CCAs serve the customers. This is an intermediary step to retail choice, which I would assume CCAs are not advocating for. I hope that the legislators give this a serious look in the name of safety and let PG&E focus on keeping the State safe.
Grassley Makes Easy Statement. I was hoping that I didn’t have to read this but after Trump said that the noise from wind farms cause cancer, my phone and email didn’t stop. Now that Senator Grassley from Iowa has given a great quote on the topic, let’s highlight the “idiotic” nature of the comment. (Not my words) Solar farms may cause sunburns I guess…
Solar Needs To Do Better. Solar is going to be a marketplace for schemes and sleaze bags that are trying to get rich quick. We see them all of the time and have friends that ask us about the latest ‘rebate’, ‘credit’ and ‘energy audit’ robocall. These scams are easy to point out but we also need to have a conversation about the folks that install solar with the same attitude. I get that I am vested in this as a manufacturer of racking products and while I think everyone should use Quick Mount products, I respect most of my competitors that meet a level of engineering, testing and quality. I am happy to compete for the business of installers that follow the code and work with the building inspectors to give homeowners solar systems that will last the duration of my 25 year warranty. What solar can’t have, and what is happening, are installations that will leak next year when the installer is long gone. I have plenty of solar wall of shame content from social media and we can point to plenty of non-code compliant product being peddled at some of the biggest conferences as well.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 3rd, 2019
More Of The Same. Bill Johnson, the former TVA, Progress Energy and Duke Energy CEO, will likely be named as the new CEO for PG&E. Working with three of the hedge funds, PG&E is nominating a new slate of directors that will not include the clean tech names that were floated by another fund. All of this will come in time for the new legislative session where Sacramento will have to decide on the bailout for the utility around the indemnities and liabilities from last years disasters. The legislature should send a strong message by denying PG&E anything and instead going all in on CCAs, solar, storage and more retail competition. First with a return to NEM 1.0 and a higher rate if a C&I project loses the tenant off taker. Maybe PG&E will realize that Sacramento isn’t playing along with more of the same.
BlackRock Goes Clean. CleanCapital is expanding their relationship with BlackRock’s Renewable Power Group with an equity investment. Last year, BlackRock and CleanCapital acquired 60 C&I projects totaling 47MW and now BlackRock will own a piece of the development platform. More to come…
Climate Change Talks Go Mainstream. On Friday, AOC held an hourlong town hall with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes to talk about the Green New Deal and climate change. One of the important notes was AOC’s reiteration that this was a resolution and not the law. That the resolution is aspirational and with the help of Rhianna Gunn-Wright explained how the goals were achievable with the help of solar and wind. I recommend watching the event, it makes the strong case around the urgency and generational need for lofty goals.
EV Critical Mass. Last month, 58% of all auto sales in Norway were Tesla. Ford announced a 370 mile range for their EV SUV and Mercedes is ready to announce a full electric lineup by 2022. Duke Energy is asking to rate base over $70 million in charging infrastructure including for mass transportation. I haven’t seen too many demand models include massive EV adoption to the extent that I expect to become reality.
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Yann