This is your SolarWakeup for August 31st, 2018

Be Heard On SolarWakeup Live. Now that I am fully installed in the hub of solar, the SolarWakeup Live studio is also in operation. After a short summer break, come back to check out the podcasts from this platform which cover that most interesting people in solar doing the most important work. Being on SolarWakeup Live means sitting on the orange chair and introducing your point of view on the most influential newsletter in solar. If you have a story to tell and want to join me in person, send your pitch the next time you are in the Bay Area.
SB700 Heads To Governor Brown. The Senate has approved SB700 in concurrence and it has made its way to Governor Brown. Further info on the Assembly vote, it passed 57-18 in a giant bipartisan victory. Lastly, the delay in the bill vote I mentioned yesterday was due to a floor speech being left behind and needed to be brought to the Assemblymember.
Lion Point Offers To Take CSIQ Private. Lion Point was part of the Suniva process when they tried to get into the debt stack during the original bankruptcy. The reason was likely due to the investment that Lion Point had in Canadian Solar. Now Lion Point sees the potential for more upside with Canadian Solar as a private company and has offered to take it private for $250million. That’s what some folks would consider, funding secured.
More Debt For Cheaper Cost. The team at kWh Analytics has been doing nice work over the past 5 years to get to this point. The work has been to figure out what makes better solar installations and creates less risk for capital providers. Once that information has been credibly gathered, asset owners can engage with kWh to put an insurance product on their debt placement and significantly increase the amount of debt that it can put on the project cash flows. In the latest round, kWh insured cash flows for a portfolio of 50MW in Oregon. I also had to pleasure to hosting the kWh team at the Quick Mount manufacturing facility for a tour last week, this type of connection making is the reason I moved to San Francisco so we could all be a lot closer together.

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Have a great day!
Yann

The Energy Show: Recycling Solar Panels with Sam Vanderhoof

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The Energy Show: By Barry Cinnamon Solar panels last 30 years or more. Almost all of the old panels that I have tested still crank out close to their original power output. Unfortunately, old solar panels are not compatible with the electronics of new systems – inverters, optimizers and microinverters. Sort of like that old CD-ROM software that is still good…if you could just get a computer that has a CD-ROM drive and runs Windows XP. Some people want to upgrade their old 14% efficiency panels with new 20%+ efficiency panels equipped with a battery storage system. One big benefit … Read More →

Canadian Solar Gets Offer For Privatization From Lions Point

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent pv magazine reports that Canadian Solar might be ready to go private, thanks to a $250 million bid from venture capital firm Lions Point. If that latter name sounds familiar, it’s because it should be: SolarWakeup brought you the news earlier this year that Lions Point found itself embroiled in the Suniva bankruptcy, as fellow Suniva creditor SQN Financial accused it of trying to sell off parts of Suniva to eliminate the competition. What competition, you ask? Right. They were arguing that though Suniva had not produced a module in more than a year, Canadian … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for August 30th, 2018

Two Days. Two Victories. Hot off the win on SB100, California keeps it coming with SB700 passing the Assembly. SB700 is a bill to extend the SGIP, the storage incentive, by 5 more years. This is an enormously important policy that allows storage to grow in the largest solar market and help consumers get solar with storage to offset the value they lost in the new time of use rate schedules. This isn’t just a victory for California however because when this market drives volume to residential and behind the meter storage locally, that means lower costs for everyone. This is part of the reason that even if you’re not doing business in California, you should consider joining CALSSA as a way of saying thank you. SB700 will head to the Senate for a concurrence vote before going to the Governor, no obstacles should come up however.
Policy Wins Take Hard Work. I was sitting in front of a computer when the votes were cast in favor of SB700 but behind the scenes, at the State, Capitol Bernadette Del Chiaro and her team at CALSSA were running around and whipping votes. They say you never want to watch sausage and laws being made and this was no different but we can recognize the work. About 15 minutes before the Assembly voted on SB700, the bill was skipped in the regular floor schedule. Most people in solar won’t ever know that and almost nobody knows, myself included, what happened in those 15 minutes. Two weeks ago 200+ solar professionals went to Sacramento to lobby for this bill and in the last year, hundreds of companies joined CALSSA to allow the lobbying to happen. My point is that none of this comes by accident or for free. If we want to succeed in this regulated business, we have to participate with our time and money.
What’s Next? There is another solar related bill on deck, AB893, which looks to increase the amount of renewable energy that California utilities have to source from developers. I’ll dig into that tomorrow to give you more insight on where that will go from here. I hope that this California edition gives hope to other States to follow suit. Governors Cuomo and Murphy should get the fear of missing out and urge their legislatures to make bold statements and grow solar in dramatic fashion.

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Have a great day!
Yann

SB 700 Passes California Assembly – SGIP Program Extended Five Years

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent The final days of the California legislative session have been big ones for clean energy. First, the Assembly passed a 100% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they moved on to extend the Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) for five years, as well as adding $700 million in additional funding. Now the bill will go back to the Senate for a concurrence vote and then on to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. There are not expected to be any blips in that process. As the California Public Utilities Commission says on its … Read More →

The Coming Battle: FERC Rules Storage Consumers Can’t Be Treated Differently Than Others By Utilities

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent The new battle lines are being drawn, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave consumers a victory yesterday as utilities struggle to come to grips with customer-sited energy storage. For years, utilities have tried, using various methods, to treat solar consumers as a separate class of customer, giving them the right to charge extra fees (among other mechanisms) that they charge to no other customer in their ratepayer base. These efforts, by and large, have been met with appropriate scorn by public utilities commissions around the country and have been rejected. Now, however, a … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for August 29th, 2018

The Big Deal, 100% For California. Let’s let this sink in. By a 2 vote margin, the 100% renewable energy future for California has passed the California Assembly. This isn’t a State saying, let’s aim for a carbon free electricity future, this is California, the 5th largest economy in the World. The economy that the world looks to for innovation and direction when all other things look like politics and rhetoric are ruining everything. Senator De Leon pushed hard for this policy last year and fell short, instead of letting it go, they went for it all once again with success. Governor Brown could sign the legislation by the end of the week just prior to the arrival of global dignitaries arrive in San Francisco for the Global Action Climate Summit. Hats off to the policy folks that worked overtime and the millions of people that pushed their legislators to get this done. Climate policy is moving in the wrong direction in many political arenas around the world and while Trump goes for all things coal, California stands up and gives us all hope! Go California and Go Solar!

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Have a great day!
Yann

GRID Alternatives’ Tribal Fund Gets $5 Million Boost From Wells Fargo

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent The Wells Fargo is coming down the street, and it’s got $5 million in it for the GRID Alternatives Tribal Solar Accelerator Fund, which is an extension of its National Tribal Program. Under the program, GRID Alternatives has already built more than 600 projects on tribal land, and the new funding will allow them to continue funding projects for the next three years. The National Tribal Program, which has installed nearly 3 MW of projects, began in 2010. GRID estimates the exisiting projects will generate $23 million in lifetime energy costs savings [wds id=”3″] “Many … Read More →

Xcel Energy Wins Approval For Aggressive Renewable Growth (And Closing A Third Of Its Coal Plants)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Yesterday, we wrote about how utilities didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about the new rules the Trump Administration had laid out to weaken regulation on coal plants. In fact, most of the utilities discussed in the article reaffirmed their commitment to growing their renewable portfolios at varying speeds. And today we have another real-life example of the shift that is coming in utilities’ attitudes both toward traditional coal plants and renewable energy. Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest utility, won approval from the Public Utilities Commission to ramp up its investments in renewable energy to to the … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for August 28th, 2018

Climate Change Solved. Horses For Everyone. In the 2004 episode of the West Wing, the President’s deputy chief of staff hosts a summit on renewable energy. The biggest problem solar had in that meeting was the inability to manufacturer enough solar panels and the other renewable energy sources laughed heartily at the immaturity of the solar market. When I read today’s note that it would take 500,000 Teslas to make up for a single Nuclear plant, I couldn’t help but think of how nuanced this statement would be in 10 years. In 2017, 17million cars were sold in the US, in 2030, millions of EVs will be sold in a single year. Don’t let progress stand in the way of the real change we need in this world.
Put This Mayor On Tour. I’d like to be a Mayor. It’s local enough where you can meet your constituents where you happen to lead them, you don’t have to go home to your district to understand their issues. In other words, you are in the same situation they are in every single day. There is a respect that people have for Mayors and I have respect for the Mayor of Abita Springs, Louisiana. This town recently installed 200 solar modules, 60kW, but regardless of size the impact is far greater.
Sweet Solar News. Ever since I interviewed the CEO of Connexus Energy about their honey-making solar farm in Minnesota, it seems that I have turned the news into a trend. As solar developers seek to get approval from rural zoning boards, pollinator habitats may be a good way to get some positive votes. Send some pictures this way if you have engaged the help of bees on your solar farm.
Watch This Space. During my discussion with Engie’s Head of Innovation, Thierry Lepercq, we spoke about the future of and intersection of EVs with solar. The conversation went towards a future of autonomous EVs fueled by clean energy that are owned by the utility but dispatched by you and me. A future where EVs are always on the road and intersect fully with the solar market, is a future that I can see our market be central to.

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Have a great day!
Yann