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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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 27th, 2018
OpEx Is OpEx. The headline is better than the actual story. Exxon is out with an RFP to buy solar and wind energy for its operations. The reason for this is nothing more than better contract terms than other sources. I’d actually look at the other side of this story and point out that Exxon doesn’t have the internal ability to get this done because they haven’t made that splashy solar acquisition. If you’re a corporate you are looking at doing a solar deal because there will not be a fuel rider in the contract, which is the real value here on top of the super low price. At least, Exxon should do the tax equity for the deal, they have the liability.
The Future Of Solar In NJ. NJ is a market that has been the core base for solar on the east coast. Now that Governor Murphy is leading and the legislature has passed some policy, I will be looking at the market in some greater detail. What are the interesting topics? There is a community solar pilot program docket being opened by the BPU but also other market aspects should make the market grow from its solid basis. Let me know what you’re looking at.
Cheap Solar Is An Issue. In 2008, a legislator, the chair of the energy committee in the Florida House, told me that he liked solar but he can’t pick winners and losers and solar must compete on price without his influence. I was young and naive so I took that comment in stride but it has stuck with me. 10 years later, solar costs have dropped like bad habits and may be causing legislative issues that those words can’t keep up with. Not only is solar cheap it’s democratized access to energy generation which is the shift that the energy market wasn’t anticipating 100 years ago.
Codes, Codes, Codes. Energy codes, as John Farrell points out, can matter and should matter to the markets. I would like to point out that energy, especially solar, has to fill the requirements of no less than a dozen code jurisdictions. The issue is that contractors often don’t have the ability to keep up with this and the building inspectors are still getting up to speed on all things solar. This ends with homeowners getting some installations that are below the expected standard and even allows some manufacturers to get away with poorly designed products that don’t meet code. I don’t have the answer to who it should be that ensures homeowners are protected but I’ve already asked SEIA to look into the possibility of adding parts of this to the consumer protections guide.
Solar Policy In CA. You may be surprised to see more news coverage about California solar policy. So here is the scoop. SB 700, which is a 5-year extension of the SGIP program, is doing well and is the bill that CALSSA (formerly CalSEIA) is running. On the other side is AB 893, a bill that would increase the amount of solar and wind that utilities and CCAs have to procure through offtake agreements. The complication here is that there are two bills that have solar support but one is backed by CALSSA and the other is backed by SEIA. One is for DG and one is for utility scale. I have my personal thoughts on this and much of those have been shared with the relevant parties but some of you have asked me about the bills and here is the background.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 24th, 2018
Have a great weekend! See you next week.
Round And Round For Coal. It’s been 6 years writing this column and the story of training coal workers to go solar has lasted about the same time. Unfortunately for them, Trump became President and promised to bring back coal. Now as we all know, coal’s future is non-existent. Just ask any utility CEO or even coal CEO, the future of coal was decided when utilities across the Country replaced their power generation with natural gas. If everyone accepted this as truth, then we could turn out focus on finding new jobs, including solar jobs, for folks in the coal economy. It is not their fault that this happened but they also need to be part of the change by telling their leaders that ‘bring back coal’ should be replaced by ‘give us solar jobs.’
Tip A Hat For Policy. Coming from the private sector, the author of this post is the Manager of Climate Change and Renewable Energy for WWF. The headline is true and each of you know it to be as well. Policy is the root of our work, it enables the rules that allow your customers to benefit from solar. That is why we need to continue to discuss the possibility of having every solar worker spend an hour per month educating or lobbying politicians about the work we are doing.
Big Solar Market Market Share. There are data points that catch my eye and seeing 5 solar module companies moving 20GW in the first half of the year was one of them. Funny enough, I would be guessing if you asked me who they were given that the US is a bit over 25% annualized in that total. Solar is a big market, let’s take some joy in that.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 23rd, 2018
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 22nd, 2018
Solar Inverter Wars. Frank goes inside some of the behind the scenes that are causing a long-awaited product release by Huawei to be delayed. Huawei has largely avoided the public image place on ZTE by Trump but it hasn’t been able to avoid the impacts caused by tariffs. Other residential inverter companies have had to adjust their supply chain as well but the release of the Huawei line has been talked about for years at this point. It would be interesting to have transparency on the other business moves that have had to adjust due to tariffs of various nature.
Screw Solar, Go Clean Coal. Yesterday was quite the news day and dropping to the bottom of the media’s list was the fact that the administration proposed a coal policy that would kill 1,400 people. This isn’t a study by a think tank or advocacy group, this comes straight from the EPA. That’s not 1,400 total, that 1,400 per year by 2030. Over a 10 year period that’s 14,000 Americans dying for no good reason whatsoever. If we can’t make the case against this, we’re less prepared to fight than anticipated.
A Clean Energy Vision. GTM’s Julia Pyper has a great interview out with Senator Heinrich about his vision for 100% renewable energy. I won’t steal the thunder but I do want to point out that when Senator Wyden, also a democrat, was at the US ITC arguing for tariffs on behalf of SolarWorld, Senator Heinrich spoke right after to argue solar’s case. He gets the vision of our industry and I applaud him for seeking out the industry media to make his case for a vision we agree with.
Going Inside Tesla. I have a newfound respect for folks that operate manufacturing plants and I love to get an inside look at how others are doing it. Obviously, Elon is a particular level of special, love him or hate him, (I’m a fan) and you have to respect that ability to roll out products that wow the consumer. I’m sure this will drive the typical love/hate emails that usually accompany Tesla comments from me, but put it aside and enjoy this interview. It’s pretty cool.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 21st, 2018
Given my updated schedule for work and my continued desire to provide value to you on a daily basis, there will be days that I’ll write one extended paragraph instead of the multiple topics. I don’t mean to cheat you out of good content but until every single reader is a customer of Quick Mount PV (not sure why that hasn’t happened yet), I will be pounding the pavement to get you to switch. Hope you’re all on board with this message and I appreciate the understanding. For the other (one person) that thinks the content has gotten to spammy since I joined Quick Mount, thanks for playing along!
Future Of Energy Savings. If you play out the game plan and use New Mexico’s demand charge as a sample, you can see a tricky future for the ‘rate design’ 3.0 era, especially in markets where solar doesn’t gain enough strength to thwart any of these attempts. Storage is going to drop costs much like solar dropped from $2.50 to $0.75 per watt perhaps even faster. With storage becoming a standard part of solar, cheap solar, any utility costs may become an added savings to the solar install. That would leave the utilities to move from solar NEM fees and demand charges to minimum bills and increasing those to make up for the lost revenues. However, if the system is completely isolated, what would the argument be? With net metering, the argument is that the solar generator has access and is using the grid during overproduction. In non-export systems, it would simply be a lost revenue argument where the fight would be that some customers don’t have access to solar or that the grid was built for all customers and they must pay for what was built in the past. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 20th, 2018
SB 700 Advances In CA. After a great day of lobbying by the 200 solar pros in Sacramento, SB 700 came out of the House Appropriations committee with a positive vote on Thursday evening. This means that the bill heads to the House floor and is expected to come to a vote. If successful, the bill may head to the Senate before going to Governor Brown. This is a fantastic bill that extends the SGIP funding for 5 years and lays the groundwork for future Governor Newsom to lead solar further down the road. A 5 year SGIP is key to solar’s growth given the importance of storage within a solar value proposition in time of use rates. California would lead the volume that drives the cost of storage down for States that are a bit more aggressive on net metering than pro-solar markets.
SC Utility Board Ousted. As I often do, I go to Twitter to see what is happening and a story made its way through energy Twitter on Saturday. A shareholder meeting of a co-op utility in South Carolina was gathering a crowd that was far bigger than any before it. When it was all done, shareholders voted to fire the board by an overwhelming margin for abusing their positions and excessive pay amongst other things. It’s an incredible story that could be a precursor for utilities across the Country if they abuse their positions.
Module Costs Decline. I’ve stopped guessing what happens to the stocks, especially solar stocks but this review of First Solar takes the view of module costs which is interesting. What happened to the pricing after tariffs and where is it going? I’ve heard not only Chinese pricing but all module prices dropping consistently into a market favorable way. Let me know what you’re seeing.
The Impact Of Policy. Utah is a strong solar market and has shown great residential solar growth. Some of the largest residential solar companies are based there. But with limited local advocacy support there was a change in net metering that has caused a bit of a reset. I’ll be looking at the State chapters a year after speaking with many of the State chapter directors to see how the industry can prop them up.
Solar Compared To Homebuilders. Homebuilders have national brands but for the most part they are quite fragmented like the solar industry. Jon Carson uses homebuilders as an example of a market that does very well in DC. Here’s my discussion with him.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 17th, 2018
Let’s Talk About Money. As you head into the weekend think of this positive victory. CALSSA let the industry know that SB700, a 5-year extension of SGIP, has cleared committee and is headed to the Assembly floor. This victory is due to the lobbying of the industry and the daily advocacy of CALSSA and a few larger companies with dedicated policy staff. We’ve all heard about the complaints from me and the advocacy groups is that there isn’t enough money flowing to the trade organizations. The typical response and justification is that we’re the solar industry and we won’t fight money with money, we will never have enough of it. I’ve bought this line over the years but I think it’s also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let me elaborate. Inside the industry, not enough companies are paying enough dues to State chapters and solar advocacy groups. I get it, money is tight in an industry that is stingy with margins. At the same time, 260,000 people in solar and if each paid $10 per month in advocacy dues, we’d have $30million more per year. Companies that do pay advocacy dues should go out of their way to support other solar companies that do as well and given the choice of two, should choose to support the one that stands side by side with us. But there is another source of money that should be supporting solar groups, groups like Vote Solar. The millionaires and billionaires that talk about climate change and renewable energy should endow our industry with hundreds of millions of dollars. That money would go to ensuring a solar advocate at every town hall, County commission and regulatory body on a full-time basis. It would also push objectives like ‘instant permits’ and electing politicians that support our industries. If they want solar to really thrive, it is incumbent on us to educate them on the political and regulatory nature of our business. We can fight power with money, we just have to ask for it more forcefully.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 16th, 2018
What It Takes, To Win. I had the incredible pleasure of spending the day with more than 200 solar professionals and the world class leaders from CALSSA in Sacramento yesterday. The annual ‘Solar In The Capitol’ lobby day allows groups of 6 to meet with legislators, including the members that represent the companies and individuals. Legislators thanked us for coming and helping them as they push for solar policy, the in person lobbying is irreplaceable and there should have been a thousand of us. I can’t thank Bernadette Del Chiaro and her team enough. There would be no solar industry in California without them and CALSSA and now I had the pleasure to see their work up close and personal. If you are not a member, join by clicking here.
Taking The Case To WTO. In a move that surprises nobody, China is taking the US to the WTO to review the tariffs imposed during the 201 case. It is important to note at this point that Suniva is no longer operational and SolarWorld USA is under contract to be acquired by SunPower. Don’t expect much to happen but its a process.
Free Markets. Subisidies. Sitting with republicans to talk about solar often starts with a comment about subsidies and that the free market should choose the technologies. That is complete and utter bullshit and now Rick Perry breaks down why the free markets in energy are really not free markets. Quite the contrary, energy markets are advantaged to the incumbent monopolies against competition and new technologies.
Storage Is Inevitable. In our lobby day, we spoke up for SB 700, the CA bill that would extend the SGIP program for 5 years. After the PG&E announcement to build over 1.5GWh of storage and the solar industry’s move to include storage in more systems, the future of energy storage is unstoppable.
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Yann
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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Yann