German Company To Build Cutting-Edge Solar Module Recycling Plant

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Easily lost amidst the excitement and thrill of building more solar capacity is a real concern: What do we do with the solar modules after the typical 25-year lifespan of a particular project? Fortunately, thanks the the European Union, a German manufacturer is on the case and has built the first industrial-sized recycling pilot plant for an industrial company in its home country. According to the website Phys.org: With strong competencies in plant manufacturing and wastewater treatment including recycling, the Geltz Umwelt-Technologie firm has built a test and treatment facility at a large disposal firm … Read More →

China To The United States: Two Can Play At That Game, Files WTO Complaint Over Tariffs

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Reuters is reporting that China has filed a World Trade Organization (WTO) complaint against the United States over the solar tariffs President Donald J. Trump imposed in February. Who could have seen THAT coming? (Everyone. Everyone saw this coming.) From Reuters writers Dan Stanway and Muyu Xu: China’s commerce ministry said a U.S. decision to subsidize renewable energy firms and impose tariffs on imported products has seriously distorted the global market and harmed China’s interests, firing the latest shot in a broader trade conflict. This is what happens when you start a trade war – … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for August 15th, 2018

SEIA’s Hopper Makes Hires. Abby Hopper, CEO of SEIA, is adding two senior hires to the team. A VP of business development will join based in the Bay Area and Jon Smirnow will join as well. Smirnow is a name you’ll recognize given that he has been an executive at SEIA before and he was active during the 201 trade case. The new executives will be joined by a VP of federal affairs that has yet to be hired.
Local Policies, Local Outreach. Policy and solar advocates have been taking the solar to the local level. The Million Solar Strong Campaign took to Long Island City with State and local elected officials to grow solar in New York and add solar to 100,000 low income households by 2023. While this was specific to New York, you could be doing this right in your backyard. As an example, 200 solar pros including 12 from the Quick Mount PV team will be heading to Sacramento to lobby for solar policies including SB 700 and SB 100. Why do we send 12 employees to lobby for solar? First, we actually shut one of our manufacturing lines down for the day so that solar pros from all aspects of our business can be heard from. Second, if we don’t stand up for our jobs and market, then who will?
Utility Choice Creates New Formulas. The first iteration of customers leaving investor owned utilities was municipalities leaving to form munis. Then it was the start of the CCAs (community choice aggregators) and energy choice initiatives like in Nevada. The issue at hand is always what happens when a customer leaves and who pays for the infrastructure that was built to serve the customer.
Yea, But What If? Bloomberg has an interesting post that shows that installed cost of solar for public companies is declining in spite of the Trump tariffs. The message is that look how great the market is working. Let me be really clear, the market would be growing faster and more broadly if the tariffs didn’t exist including the AD/CVD charges. What if, that’s the question we need to show data for.
Congrats To Conergy Team. A quick word to the team of Conergy pros remaining in Asia. I spent a great two years with many of them and now they are joining Macquarie as their solar development and EPC platform. The Conergy team is top notch, based out of Singapore, and this is well deserved corporate development.

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Have a great day!
Yann

Old Face, New Face: SEIA Adds Two New Members To Its Executive Team

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has returned to full strength, adding two members to its executive team: one who saw the association through some tough trade times and one outsider to bring a new perspective to the association as it looks to navigate the near-term and long-term futures of the solar industry. John Smirnow will rejoin SEIA as general counsel and vice president of market strategy, and Tony Chen will serve in the newly created position of vice president of business development. The announcement comes weeks after SEIA dismissed its previous executive vice president … Read More →

Farmland Protection Built Into New Solar Bills In Illinois

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent The latest solar bills in Illinois – an emerging market thanks to the Future Energy Jobs Act – hopes to balance farmer concerns about land use with the development of large-scale ground-mounted utility and small commercial projects. Under the legislation signed into law by Governor Bruce Rauner on Friday, farming communities would have a uniform, set property tax assessment on newly built solar farms to ensure communities receive the income from the farms they have been promised. A separate bill also sets strict standards for the construction and deconstruction of solar farms built on agricultural … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for August 14th, 2018

Why CA Is 50% Of Solar Market. Good policy doesn’t happen by accident, it comes from effective policy representation. Tomorrow the solar industry is heading to Sacramento to push for the next year of policy including SB 100, the 100% RPS for California. I know your time and money is valuable but CALSSA has a PAC to help drive money into the political process. Please consider making a contribution.
Learning Lessons. Without knowing the details, you would expect NV Energy to stay as far away from the distributed solar policy as possible. After what happened a few years ago, it appears that NV Energy will continue to think in very short time spans about only itself. That’s why the headline about Sierra Club and NRDC joining NV Energy against energy choice seemed so wrong on the face of it.
Another Trillion To Go. Solar and wind have reached 1 terawatt in cumulative capacity which means that more than a trillion dollars have been invested. For most of those projects that means an interconnection, land rights and off-taker agreement are making that capital some of the most secure investment portfolios in the world. Let’s do it again, this time in less than a decade! 

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Have a great day!
Yann

The Energy Show: Upgrading Your Solar System

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The Energy Show: By Barry Cinnamon Over a million buildings in the U.S. have rooftop solar. These systems are extremely reliable: solar panels are guaranteed for 25 years, and inverters are guaranteed for 10-25 years. Our experience as a contractor since 2001 bears out the terrific reliability record of rooftop solar. Nevertheless, when inverters are past their expected lifetime we upgrade them to new models. Often we are able to replace two smaller inverters with one more efficient large inverter. When rooftop systems get very dirty (generally in areas without regular rainfall) we provide cleaning services. And not surprising to … Read More →

Q&A With Bernadette DelChiaro: California Lobby Day – What It Is And Why You Should Care

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In a previous life, writer Frank Andorka spent his Februarys at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. attending the Legislative Day for the pest management industry. He’s always been surprised there isn’t such a national conference/day for the solar industry, but he did discover that the California Solar + Storage Association holds its own version in Sacramento on Wednesday. He asked Bernadette DelChiaro, the group’s executive director, about why she thinks “Lobby Day” is important. Here are her answers. Frank Andorka (FA): What is Lobby Day? Bernadette DelChiaro (BDC): Our annual Solar & Storage Worker … Read More →

Solar, Wind Capacity Reaches 1 TW – Are We Only Five Years Away From The NEXT TW?

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent It took forty years for clean energy – solar and wind specifically – installations to reach 1 TW of installed capacity. BNEF says we’re only five years away from reaching the next TW. Talk about an accelerated adoption speed. [wds id=”3″] BNEF says the global solar and wind industries reached 1 TW of installed capacity sometime in the middle of the year, which if it all was in the United States could power the entire U.S. electric fleet. Albert Cheung, BloombergNEF’s head of analysis in London, offered this exciting insight: Hitting one terrawatt is a … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for August 13th, 2018

Oklahoma Is Prime For Free Markets. The news out of Oklahoma is that the AG (not Scott Pruitt anymore) says that providers of third party solar contracts are not to be classified as utilities. The reality is that it’s Oklahoma and that the AG opinion may change as required by the politics. But, there is little that I want to see more than the State of Pruitt and Inhofe to have to wrestle with cheap solar and wind especially cheap solar and wind with cheap batteries.
A Step Backward. The politics of fossil fuels is really the politics of the incumbent markets. When we electrified the nation the deal was that monopolies were carved out and private capital was guaranteed a profit. The incumbency is the struggle here, not just the fuel source. The DNC wrestled with the wrong problem, which was not enough money, instead of wrestling with the issue of taking that money from the fossil companies solar subsidiaries. How great would it be to have a $10million donation from an oil company coming from solar company X?
SB100 And CA Lobby Day. California needs to show the nation and the world that the future is 100% renewable energy. Amongst other things, the California solar industry is coming to Sacramento this Wednesday to lobby for the local industry with CALSSA. If you are in solar it means you are likely doing business in California. Couple ways that you can help. First, come to Sacramento this Wednesday. If you’re not local and can’t make it then take the $1k that it would have cost you in time and travel and send a check. I’ll take that from you and deliver it to the CALSSA PAC that helps advance our market here. We talk about how we cannot compete on money but I’m not asking you for $10k, just $1k that you spend every time you travel for a meeting. Hit reply and I’ll give you the details. Let’s get at least $12k together today as a SolarWakeup team.
A Better Way To Splice. We all use rail to mount our modules but while most rail is created equal, there is a way to use rail to save money on labor. With the Quick Mount PV QRail you get an internal splice that requires not hardware that needs to be screwed in and the clamps won’t fall out when placed in the channel. Check out this quick video to see the difference!

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Have a great day!
Yann