This is your SolarWakeup for March 19th, 2018
C&I and Community Solar. Last week as we went through the 2017 Solar Market Insight, I was a bit surprised to see that non-residential (C&I) grew in a year where the market corrected from the 2016 rush. As I walked through the numbers and checked with SEIA, I was surprised to find out that the category included community solar. I don’t understand the logic of this, given that almost all community solar projects are large ground mount projects. The notion that community solar is as logical as LADWP FIT deals being considered utility scale. It would also require contract for difference/direct access projects to be considered as non-residential in this line of thought. I don’t see how any of that would work out and therefore believe that the Solar Market Insight needs to be revised with community solar going into the utility scale category.
Women in Solar, Sunrun and Johns Hopkins. Lynn Jurich is probably the best known woman in solar and deservedly so, taking Sunrun from infancy to IPO and beyond. I’d love to see her not he mainstream airwaves more given her position as a public company CEO, CNBC needs her on a regular appearance to counter the daily Joe Kernen nonsense. Sunrun has grown up in many ways as well. Years ago, it was squeezed between SolarCity and Vivint Solar when it appeared that SunEdison’s acquisition of Vivint Solar would make it hard for Sunrun to rise above, with many calling for the company to sell to a strategic so it would not suffer from possible closure. I would be remiss not to point out the Johns Hopkins University (Go Hop!) alumni, Ed Fenster who founded the company alongside Lynn a decade ago.
Germany’s Opportunity. Decarbonization ‘experts’ like to point out that Germany, with all the wind and solar, is increasing its carbon output, mostly due to the intense use of coal power. (Natural gas has been a political problem given much of it comes from Russia) That being said, I see a real opportunity for Germany to get to 100% renewable energy very quickly with large scale integration of energy storage. Offshore win is readily available to make up for the Alaska equivalent solar output. I grew up in and worked in Germany for many years and this feels like a restart of the great market which served as a baseline for the global growth.
Will SunPower Get Relief? SunPower filed its request for exemption from the 201 tariff on Friday. Frank has your coverage on this, right here
A Poll On Your Work. I’m hoping to spend more time on working to get your involvement with policy makers to increase. The goal is to get you to spend 10 hours per year with legislators and perhaps one day to the same level as union painters, 10 hours per month. The first step is to get you to tell me about your company, and if you make things. There is a focus on manufacturing in solar right now, so this is step 1 in our journey together. I can’t do this alone but as a team we will get better at this organizing. Take this poll
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 16th, 2018
Solar Messaging. This morning, most media outlets released their coverage of the 2017 solar market data which showed headlines of a 30% overall drop and drop in residential solar sector. So if your editor wants an Elon Musk failed or Trump kills solar headline, you could have written it with that focus. Coverage from Axios and CNBC, which don’t tend to have an anti-solar tweak didn’t come out with the most positive headlines. At SolarWakeup, I see what gets clicks and bad headlines are adored by readers so that’s part of the story but the other part of it was the messaging. 2016 was a banner year for political reasons and 2017 had 201 headwinds throughout the year. You’d have to get to the bottom of the press release to see that so while no-one in solar was surprised when I spoke with them, the non-solar worker reading mainstream headlines would think this space is struggling.
Scary Grid Stuff. Utility execs stay awake at night thinking about cyber attacks against the grid. Now the Trump administration is making he known unknown visible to the masses. Personally I don’t know what to do with the information except add it to the bullets on the slide of why the energy system needs more distributed generation and flexibility.
Trade And Manufacturing. China hawk Peter Navarro is telling Wall Street to ‘just relax’ regarding the tariffs. Saying that our trade deficits need to be stood up against. I have a question for Navarro. What would you say to the American worker that takes raw aluminum that is imported to the US and makes patented US manufactured solar racking products? Just relax? What do you say to the banker, lawyer and solar developer that just dropped a 20MW deal in Texas because of a solar module tariff? Just relax? Now that 201 manufacturing hype is coming back to reality, the cheerleaders of ‘new manufacturing’ are nowhere to be found because they are wrong, as wrong as most of them have been over the years on most things solar.
Weekend, Next Week. For the readers that joined our March Madness bracket, most of you are rooting big for UVA. For the two of you that picked Arizona to win it all, you will not be writing a SolarWakeup paragraph this year. Next week we will all get together with our friends from Vote Solar. It’s not too late for you to join me in San Francisco and lots of your solar friends. Reminder, if you spend $1,000 or more on tickets you get a space in this opening text. Just send me the receipt.
WAKEUP20. In 4 weeks, many of you will be with me as we bring SolarWakeup Live! to San Francisco to hear from leaders in venture capital, policy and CCA energy procurement. I’d love for your to join me as well, take 20% off an already very cheap ticket.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 15th, 2018
2017 Solar Market Data Is Out. Frank has the details for you on the 2017 data that is out fresh this morning. 2016 kicked 2017’s a$$ but we knew that was coming. 2016 had two big advantages on 2017, the ITC pull forward and the 201 fight in 2017. As an industry we still surpassed 10GW in total capacity with utility scale leading the way once again. Resi retracted but non-residential made some gains. We’ve got the reaction from across the solar industry for you to judge against your own thoughts. One thing to consider is that solar came in behind natural gas but just yesterday the Arizona regulators put a halt on all new natural gas in Arizona unless the utilities request a waiver and show that solar plus storage is not a better choice. (Hint: this may be the start of the end for new gas) Here’s the full story.
Things You’ll Find On Twitter. Having the ability to report on original content is giving me a new look on Twitter, especially as I sit in airports across the Country. This time I ran across a tweet storm from an NRDC attorney, Miles Farmer, who was giving the play by play on a new FERC filing. It’s worth a read and consideration when you realize that our market is still subject to so many different levels of regulation that many of us never think of.
The Koch Re-Education. Last year we spoke about the moves by utilities and Koch backed groups to pay for community leaders to preach anti-solar in churches across the solar belt. The gig appears to be over as new economic opportunities are shown in our industry and community leaders are pushing back. Misleading education is apparent across the country and anytime it falls flat is a good day.
Larry Kudlow. Is going to be the next Gary Cohn, aka #1 economic advisor to Trump. Kudlow loves Reagan and Art Laffer. For Kudlow, the free market will solve all problems. Which means that all tariffs will be gone by the end of next week! Well, that is unlikely to happen because Kudlow is going to realize that he will either have played a free market capitalist on TV or his stay in the White House will be short lived. This is a reminder that Scaramucci also spent a lot of time on the CNBC air over the years.
3 Million EVs. Volkswagen is planning on building 3 million EVs in 2025. That’s only 6 years from now and I wouldn’t be surprised if they beat that. Energy demand growth curves may be flat over the past decade but don’t expect that trend to stay the same. With announcements like these, I am not surprised that companies like EVgo are making big executive moves in anticipation of growth.
Wakeup San Francisco. New speaker announcement! Joining the discussion is Lindsay Saxby of Marin Clean Energy, a CCA that has been an active buyer for solar energy. Lindsay is the Power Supply Contracts Manager for MCE and will be a great discussion about how CCAs operate in the grid and the role they could play for our sector. You can get your tickets here for the event just 4 weeks from now.
March Madness Bracket. SolarWakeup is having the 1st annual March Madnessbracket challenge and it’s free. Go to ESPN Tournament Challenge and search for SolarWakeup group. The password is GoSolar. The more folks we have, the more fun we will have. The winner gets to write the opening paragraph and promote their agenda, company or cause. You must fill out your brackets today, before the first game starts.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 14th, 2018
COSEIA. Join me tomorrow in Denver as I interview the team behind the Clean Energy Federal Credit Union, a project years in the making. What questions do you want to hear answers to? How can the lending community help your business?
Taxes and Tariffs. We will be talking a lot more about tariffs this week but it’s clear that tax reform and tariffs had a huge effect on the year solar had in 2017. Now that those things are figured out, people are back to putting their heads down and getting stuff done. Question for you, what is it going to take for C&I to get into the multi-MW scale?
Semis and Buses. I am intrigued by the business opportunities that electric vehicles present in our energy future. Made more interesting by the deployment of electric semis and buses in fleets of the future. First, electric vehicles are simply better. Second, we have a lot of work to do to enable the fleets to not be affected by long duration charging. My guess is we are a few years from energy demand growing in the US.
He Is Back. Arnold, man of many accomplishments, has a major task ahead of him. He is suing the oil companies for their failure to disclose the health risks of climate change. Comparing it to the tobacco companies, he wants to use civil litigation to drive some change. I wonder if he’s been approached to help the solar space.
San Francisco. We will have some big news including another speaker for Wakeup Live SF this week, mark April 10th on your calendar to join your colleagues.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 13th, 2018
Old Grid, New Energy. Some of today’s best stories are on Twitter when an expert gives his take in the snippet format. Sometimes that information gets covered by our Frank Andorka (reminder: you can send anonymous tips from solarwakeup.com or email him or myself). In this case, he covered the responses by the various ISOs to FERC’s request for information about resiliency. This is part of the NOPR process we saw a few months ago. The takeaway, our grid isn’t made for new energy generation and wires are the weakest link. His story here.
Big Time Virginia Legislation. A big utility bill that passed the Virginia legislature and has now been signed by Governor Northam. Amongst the many issues this bill tackles, it declares 5GW of solar and wind development in the public interest. Bills like this take years to accomplish and solar’s role was in the weeds for much of that time. One of the people that I know was deeply involved in this is Scott Thomasson of Vote Solar. If you plan on doing business in Virginia, come say thank you in person at Equinox 2018. More coverage on this coming shortly, check solarwakeup.com in a few hours.
Overhyping Bad News. Yesterday there was an article about solar taking a break in California. It was the top story you clicked on and therefore we covered it. First, top gravitating to the bad headlines. Second, most of these articles are clickbait based on misread data. So we set the record straight in our afternoon story so that you get the complete picture.
RPS Ballot Initiatives. 2018 is going to be a big year for ballot initiatives. Amongst the many issues across the Country are three RPS questions being posed in Arizona, Nevada and Michigan. I’m optimistic that these questions will do well at the polls not only because of a wave but because people like the idea of more clean energy in the wake of closing power plants.
See You There? I am waiting for two confirmations of great interviews to join two already great solar leaders, Bernadette Del Chiaro and Danny Kennedy. The venue selection is going on now so if you expect to attend, get your tickets now. Event is on April 10th.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 12th, 2018
Prosumerism Consolidation. Before Innogy existed and E.ON split itself, RWE and E.ON were the German utilities trying to make sense of the new direction of the power economy. Germany led the way in solar before everyone else and eventually RWE and E.ON realized they had two distinct businesses. Power plants and consumer services. Both of them created a prosumer business, spun out from the parent company. Now, E.ON is acquiring innogy, the RWE prosumer business in a complicated transaction. For solar, especially in the US, it doesn’t mean much except for a bigger player on the block in E.On. Both entities have been investing heavily, more on that to come. Most notable units with the transaction is Belectric (owned by innogy) which appears to be heading to RWE once the transaction closes.
Vote Solar’s Michigan Report. Frank Andorka covered the report released by Vote Solar late last week. We’ve talked about the strategic shift in Vote Solar’s tactics to opine on issues that otherwise wouldn’t affect solar except now solar is a better choice for consumers. This report presents the data to make it so and hopefully the regulators will listen. These types of projects are not free nor cheap. Vote Solar needs your help to make markets like Michigan prosper so you can do business there. Join me and hundreds of solar friends at Equinox 2018 in San Francisco next week on the 22nd. Reminder: if you buy 10 tickets and send me the receipt, you get to write a paragraph here.
Storage Market(s). Make sure to catch my conversation about dc-coupled energy storage or read the write up from Frank. This was recorded at SolarWakeup Live! New York. A lot of hype about dc-coupled has got storage companies claiming big things but I spoke with one that has had it up and running for a year. If you are doing solar farms or C&I, you’ve got to be thinking about storage.
Oklahoma? My friends know that this is the State that I want to make the poster child of energy systems. So when I read about EV growth in Oklahoma and feedback from people that bought an EV, I get excited. OG&E and the other utilities have such a great opportunity to send us a postcard from the future.
SolarWakeup Live San Francisco. The second speaker to join us on the SolarWakeup Live! stage is Bernadette Del Chiaro, the Executive Director of California Solar and Storage Association. Everyone knows Bernadette and the work she’s done to bring CalSSA to where it is today. She is going to be a great conversation and will give us the insight on the legislative agenda ahead for the largest market in America. Get your tickets now, WAKEUP20 for 20% off.
March Madness Bracket. SolarWakeup is having the 1st annual March Madness bracket challenge and it’s free. Go to ESPN Tournament Challenge and search for SolarWakeup group. The password is GoSolar. The more folks we have, the more fun we will have. The winner gets to write the opening paragraph and promote their agenda, company or cause. Must have your bracket complete by Tip-off on the 18th.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 9th, 2018
Storage Podcast. New podcast is up for you to listen to. Make sure you are subscribing on the podcast app of your choice and heading to iTunes and giving energyWakeup a 5-star rating. This week we have the CEO of FlexGen to talk about the benefits of dc-coupled energy storage. Adding storage to solar has never been easier.
More Trump Taxes. More Solar Taxes. The steel and aluminum tariffs are official. Canada and Mexico are spared however but there are a few impacts for you to consider. There isn’t enough American made commodity to satisfy all of our needs for the product so at the very least it increases the pricing locally. There is no apparent mechanism for the tariff to flow to US manufacturing, much like the solar tariff. These trade barriers only serve to increase the cost to US consumers.
Your Policy Task. Last week I told you what you could do to advance solar policy with your colleagues. This week I ask the same of you if you have manufacturing happening in your company. If you have workers making things then invite your State Representative/Senator or your Congressman to your facility and show them the type of jobs your company creates for your community. Explain how the solar market works and how global it is, that every tax/tariff hinders your ability to grow and create more jobs. Get it all on tape and put it on social media.
Big Wind. One offshore wind turbine for 12MW. That’s a big wind turbine.
CERAWeek. This week was some sort of oil and gas gathering that brought out some crazy quotes, especially from Secretary Zinke and Perry. It gives you some great insight on who they are working for. Hint - it’s not solar…
Sponsor. Get your message out to your customers, most of whom read this newsletter. Contact us for sponsorship opportunities for the newsletter and events. You can also get your ticket for SolarWakeup Live San Francisco (April 10th) right here Use code WAKEUP20 for 20% off.
Selection Sunday. Everyone’s dream is to write these words, I know. Now you have two different chances to do that. SolarWakeup is having the 1st annual March Madness bracket challenge and it’s free. Go to ESPN Tournament Challenge and search for SolarWakeup group. The password is GoSolar. The more folks we have, the more fun we will have. The winner gets to write the opening paragraph and promote their agenda, company or cause.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 8th, 2018
SolarWakeup Live! San Francisco. The Bay Area is the center of the solar industry universe. Almost 20% of the readers of this newsletter are somewhere within an hour of San Francisco. So after a 3 city warmup, we are coming there. We are honing in on a venue and invite you to join us. One confirmed speaker is Danny Kennedy of CalCEF and formerly Sungevity and so much more. If you are looking for brand exposure on this platform, this is also a great opportunity to sponsor. As you’ve seen below, sponsors get on the newsletter, website, podcast in addition to the event. Send me an email at yann@solarwakeup.com to talk about sponsoring. See you there!
I Am Hopeful. David Hogg is one of the recognizable activists that has emerged post Parkland shooting. Through his activism he has amassed a platform and a following on social media. One of his comments last week was about the need for STEM education so that he and his generation can get jobs in wind and solar. It took me a few days to digest this and consider whether it was content important for this audience. Here is a 17 year old that just went through horror. He is speaking out on issues that matter to him and sees optimism in the future within our industry. I think that says something about the industry that we’ve built together and I, for one, welcome him and all of the next generation to join us in our mission.
You Get An EV. You Get An EV. No, this is no the next episode of the Oprah show. But it is likely coming to a utility near you. We’ve talked about it before. Utilities have flat demand growth and they need a catalyst and that means competing with gas stations as the source of fuel. This is not a small event in history, utilities have never competed with BP, Exxon, etc. They have each stayed in their own lane but now those worlds are converging.
Everyone Loves Tax Credits. GM wants to build more EVs. Every auto OEM is doing so and just in time for the EV tax credit to expire. Look for these giant companies, with rather large amounts of influence to head to DC and get the tax credit extended. Expect the utilities to help them do that, because of the point above. Wall Street may be on their side as well because someone has to finance all of those cars.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 7th, 2018
Crossing 1GWh. GTM sees energy storage crossing 1GWh in 2018. Trivia for you. Name the year that solar crossed 1GW of installed capacity for the year….any guesses? It was 2011, just 7 years ago. Storage is going to find it’s path relatively quickly given the cost curve aided by scale provided by the EV sector and increasing need for more solar which needs to be made more flexible with storage. The question for you is what price per kWh on storage gets your projects into the solar + storage category? $400? $350? $300? Let me know
That’s A Huge Solar Spill. I didn’t have to wait long for my point above to prove correct. California, not counting distributed generation, was powered 49.95% with solar energy on March 4th. It’s the combination of mild weather that left A/C’s turned off and sunny skies for great production. What needs to happen next is a lot of storage on the existing solar plants, a bit of dispatch capability will go a long way.
Sunrun Goes To The Top. These rankings are a bit antiquated and a far cry from the ramp up at the height of the lease races a few years ago. I’m hopeful that future earnings will show return on cash with positive earnings instead of NPV created. I understand the complication of deploying capital in a publicly traded company but many investors don’t get it.
Monopoly In A Red State. A republican legislator in Florida’s capital once told me that the utility monopoly is the hardest issue to square for republican elected officials. Free markets and monopolies aren’t the match made in heaven especially when the free market can do it for cheaper when it comes to solar. This is playing out in South Carolina, where a conservative leaning solar advocacy group is making this pitch to State legislators.
Top Story. Your top story yesterday was about the PLR for retrofitting solar with energy storage. Here is our coverage. New podcast on storage coming today, an interview with the CEO of FlexGen.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for March 6th, 2018
SunPower Goes Big On Storage. In exclusive pictures obtained by SolarWakeup, SunPower unveiled the addition of Sonnen and Tesla residential battery systems to their dealer product line. In San Diego for a dealer meeting, 150 installers represented by 500 people heard CEO Tom Werner go through their business offerings. SolarCity used to be SunPower dealers’ biggest competition but that is water under the bridge for SunPower at this point. Joining with both Tesla and Sonnen means that SunPower isn’t going to take a risk on supply chain. Slides showing the entire product line and storage offerings are inside the story.
The C&I Goldmine. Engie continues the buying spree adding Socore, the solar developer, to its roster. This comes just a few weeks after the acquisition of Infinity Renewables, the wind developer. Socore has been known for its C&I development adding community solar and other segments in recent years. The challenge for Engie going forward will be integrating the various companies into the umbrella and leveraging the capabilities across the value chain. Go back and listen to my interview with Engie’s VP of Innovation, Thierry Lepercq.
Let The Kids Save Us. Kids turning 18 and voting can’t come soon enough. Even on climate change, an issue that is polarizing in the polls, both sides of the millennial aisle believe that it’s happening. What our industry needs to do however, is stop talking about climate change. We need to change the conversation on solar energy, jobs and monopolies. Every question about energy, about job growth needs to show our talking point while explaining that incumbent market participants are against us and using consumer’s money to fight solar.
Storage Retrofits. Big news for residential solar as a private letter ruling comes out stating that storage can be added while qualifying for the ITC. This PLR is only for this one case but is often used across markets with similar situations but don’t rely on that PLR or my comments for tax advice! Homeowners will want to make sure they install proper hardware and software so only solar energy charges the batteries.
CO SEIA. Next Wednesday, I will be interviewing the team behind the nation’s first clean energy federal credit union at the Colorado SEIA conference. If you would like your company to partner with us and sponsor this episode, please reach out.
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Yann