This is your SolarWakeup for July 2nd, 2018
Impact Of Mobility On Solar. It doesn’t appear to be happening a lot yet but I think there is a natural overlap between the mobility and solar markets. I am taking this beyond the EV charger under a solar carport. More interesting is the value of the PPAs between solar owners and C&I clients or homeowners and going back for an upsell. Many of the land use documents are already in place so why not go in and add more technology. Are you in either sector and actually going after this? Have any mobility companies reached out to you? Let me know.
Delisting Yingli Solar. If you are like me, you’ve been watching plenty of global football over the past few weeks. One thing that is different is the missing Yingli Solar ads on the banners around the stadiums which were everywhere when the World Cup was in Brazil 4 years ago. The Yingli name will also disappear from the NYSE as they are getting delisted. Are these modules still moving around the US market?
Adapting Tesla’s Solar Business. There is no doubt that SolarCity (sorry, I can’t call it Tesla yet) has taken a turn away from the clear leading role in solar. Cutting the speed of growth took much of the sales push away while the rest of the industry has been able to push upward as well. I know many in solar partake in the Tesla bashing, especially in solar, but I would say that the bigger story is what has happened to the growth of the local installer. Doing 1MW or more per year is no longer unique, it’s actually quite necessary in many instances. The distributed nature of residential solar is exactly why I made the move into the sector. Many great companies have the ability to serve consumers with great customer service and the same financing options that originally gave SolarCity the advantage.
Consolidation Is Good For Resi Solar. When the news broke a few weeks ago that SunCommon and Hudson Solar were merging, I read with interest. Mergers are a great way to grow in a market that is tight on the margins and for installers it means more volume to negotiate with distributors and finance providers. The news this week really made me excited because seeing business operation financing for solar companies means it’s another signal about markets understanding and appreciating solar.
Presented by Pfister Energy – Pfister Energy is a turnkey design-build renewable energy provider for commercial, industrial, utility, and community projects with an emphasis on energy efficiency and energy management. We possess 25 years of project experience with over 120 MW of solar installed on rooftops, carports and on unused land nationally. Clean energy is not limited to solar and as part of our smart building-integrated energy plan, we provide holistic solutions by stacking solar, LED lighting, wind, daylighting and other energy efficiency systems combined with storage. Visit www.pfisterenergy.com for more information.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 29th, 2018
I hope you have a great weekend. I am headed back to the East Coast for a week and will be back in San Francisco for Intersolar. Are you coming?
Protecting Consumers. SEIA is out with a revised consumer protections document meant to give homeowners information and questions to use during a home buying process. It would make sense for ‘good’ contractors that use quality products and stand behind their work to attach the document to their proposals with their answers to the list of questions. If you provide the homeowner with the document with answers, they are likely to use the document with your competitors that may not hold themselves to the same standards.
Time For Power Companies To Go Private. When you look at the IPP marketplace in the US it’s no longer surprising to me that the most innovative (for large corporations) are the foreign IPPs with largely European shareholders. Companies like NRG and Sempra have faced activist investors that push for a quarterly focus on traditional power and monetization of any renewable facilities. That being said, the global IPPs may be too big to make the real innovative change that can be game changing. One of the activist influenced IPPs should consider going public and going the other way. Instead of quarterly focus, they can partner with long term yield investors to create the future we think possible.
Supreme Court Impact On Environment. What does it mean for the environmental policies when Justice Kennedy retires and is replaced this summer. An interesting, albeit sometimes small, issue that could result in a change of view on the current policies and rules. Aside from this retirement, Commission Powelson of FERC is retiring after just a year. He may be the swing vote on the coal and nuclear emergency bailout issue. More on this to come.
Divesting Political Campaign Funds. Politics continue to play a role in the energy space, which should come to no surprise to any of you. After the NY-14 primary upset and a primary of his own, Governor Cuomo is signing the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge. If you recall, the Democratic primary in Virginia put the donations of the utility at issue but without the result of the eventual nominee to stop taking the money. It seems like the issue is evolving and we will end up with all candidates taking the position of not taking money from oil, gas, and utilities.
Presented by ENGIE. ENGIE (formerly SoCore Energy) is a market leader in commercial, industrial, and distributed solar and storage portfolio development with installations across some 25 states. ENGIE offers commercial and industrial companies, electric cooperatives, and communities solar and storage solutions that provide energy cost savings, increased resiliency and carbon reduction opportunities.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 28th, 2018
Palmetto State Showdown. I’m starting to realize that the legislature in SC may be playing dirty with the solar industry. For the second time, last second rules have stopped the net metering cap from being increase and the cap is rapidly approaching. This is going to cause the halt of the market and potential loss of jobs for South Carolinians. Hopefully this can be turned around next year in earnest.
Electrify Everything Says SMUD. The Sacramento utility is looking ahead for homes in their service area and realizes that a fully electric home may be the best way forward. The rebates, up to $13k on existing homes, serve to ready homes for a future without more gas infrastructure. This is the first of this concept that have typically pushed for water heaters, stoves etc to go gas and reduce electricity usage. The skeptic may look at this and see a utility that wants to have more customer base but it doesn’t appear to be true in this case.
LG Comes To Alabama. Another 500MW assembly plant has been announced, this time by LG. The plant is an add on to the existing campus LG has in the State of Alabama. Now, I have nothing against Alabama but why not North Carolina? We know it all centers around the cost of labor but for once it would be great if the manufacturer thought about the market dynamics a bit. Tease the State with the plant in return for a market perhaps? Now that we are well passed the 2GW of exclusion for cell imports, how will the US assemblers deal with this?
Remember SB 100. I covered the 100% RPS in California last year when it looked like it could pass the California legislature. This year that looks like an even better possibility. So remember the bill, SB 100, because I’m starting to increase my confidence that this could become reality. Over the past year, legislators have had the chance to see costs plummet on solar and storage and the pushback on the ability to do this is basically gone. Let’s put California, one of the largest economies in the world, on track to 100% by passing SB 100.
Presented by Sunrun. Sunrun is the largest residential solar, storage and energy services company in the United States with a mission to create a planet run by the sun. Since establishing the solar as a service model in 2007, Sunrun continues to lead the industry in providing clean energy to homeowners with little to no upfront cost and at savings to traditional electricity. Sunrun is excited to expand its solar offerings to Illinois residents.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 27th, 2018
More Solar For Low Income Consumers. It is not news to anyone in the solar industry that low income families spend a much larger portion of their income on electricity that their higher earning fellow ratepayers. California recognizes that low solar prices with no fuel volatility should be available to all families. This was also a topic covered in detail at SolarWakeup Live! Chicago last week which has a nice summary in the top post today.
Privatizing Puerto Rico’s PREPA. Last week, the Governor of Puerto Rico signed a bill to partially privatize PREPA and at least one solar developer is concerned about what this means to their offtake agreement. The challenge is that PREPA should roll that contract forward and continue satisfying the agreement. PREPA says that the privatization has to decide the fate of the agreement. More to come about this.
More PACE On C&I Solar. The good folks at CleanFund have outlined their vision for how solar can be installed on more C&I buildings. With the SolarPACE calculator and their partners program, the ability for more people to access capital is becoming reality. If you are coming into town for Intersolar, make sure to say hello and learn about where PACE is today. While it was an exotic capital tool a few years ago, the cost and availability has gone into solar’s favor in a big way.
South Carolina Solar Setback. Yesterday, South Carolina state senate members of the budget conference committee decided that raising the net metering cap through a budget proviso would violate Senate procedural rules and decided to remove the proviso from the budget bill. Vote Solar’s Thad Culley says “It is deeply disappointing that clean energy progress in South Carolina will be delayed another year, putting at risk 3,000 local jobs in the state’s once-thriving solar industry and limiting South Carolinians only true alternatives to monopoly utilities.”
Presented by Pfister Energy – Pfister Energy is a turnkey design-build renewable energy provider for commercial, industrial, utility, and community projects with an emphasis on energy efficiency and energy management. We possess 25 years of project experience with over 120 MW of solar installed on rooftops, carports and on unused land nationally. Clean energy is not limited to solar and as part of our smart building-integrated energy plan, we provide holistic solutions by stacking solar, LED lighting, wind, daylighting and other energy efficiency systems combined with storage. Visit www.pfisterenergy.com for more information.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 26th, 2018
Thank You! ICYMI. I appreciate all the notes about the new day job. In case you missed it yesterday, I am moving to San Francisco and joining Quick Mount PV as President. For more information, see yesterday’s edition of SolarWakeup. Lastly, it would be a bad business of me to avoid offering our support in your residential company’s work. When it comes to quality and superior roof integration, nobody does it better than the team at QMPV. You know where to find me.
An IRS Victory, Well Done. SEIA has been working on this and staff was able to get it done. Much like the 1603 rules, the ITC will have a 5% hurdle in order to give developers additional time to complete a project beyond the deadline. The rule, known as commencing construction, was widely used across the solar market for ’1603’ modules to allow future projects to take advantage of this as well.
Lenders Want Solar Deals. The great team at kWh analytics is sharing some data about lenders interested and active in solar. Catching me off guard was the sheer number, almost 50 banks, that made it into the ‘solar landscape’ which explains the competitive cost of capital that is being found by project owners. One of the topics that we don’t talk much about is the installation methods in the underwriting process. While BNEF has the tier 1 list for modules, who ensures that the right products are being installed to install the systems on the ground or on the roof? The IEs are barely scratching the surface on that and given the 30-year lifespans being modeled, there should be a complete system analysis.
Honey Sweet Solar. I spoke with the CEO of Connexus Energy about this in detail but it is worth discussing again. Vegetation management is a line item for solar asset owners that can be more than a cost burden. Using native pollinators allow the option of adding beehives to your solar farm as the Connexus solar farm did in Minnesota. The honey can be sold to offset some of the vegetation costs and do good for the environment. Look into this concept for your next project, there are already companies targeting the solar market for this.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 25th, 2018
Heading Out West. After 12 years in solar while living in Florida, I am leaving the Sunshine State for San Francisco. For a decade, I joked that the only solar job in Florida was at the airport while we flew to other markets, for me, that destination was often the Bay Area. The family is packing up as I write this and we will be moved to the Bay in a few weeks. San Francisco is the center of the solar industry and a great many of you (the readers) are in the area which makes me look forward to this next chapter.
My Day Job. This may come as a surprise to you but I have a day job that is not SolarWakeup. Most recently I was the President of Conergy for the Americas before doing consulting for various companies and private equity firms. I am now joining the amazing team at Quick Mount PV as President. Quick Mount PV has been a great company in the solar industry for over a decade and I am humbled to join the team. This will be my first time working in residential solar in my solar career but it is an industry I have admired since the start. Putting solar on homes is as important as any work we do in solar and doing so with superior quality is at the center of it. Nobody puts forth that quality better than Quick Mount PV and that’s something I look forward to showing off across the industry. We’ll be hiring around the Country as well, mostly in sales, and it’s always a pleasure to work with more of you. You can find information about those jobs here. One of the great things about QMPV is the factory that makes many of the products you use every day right here in Walnut Creek, CA.
Aligning My Values With My Work. Little did I know when I launched SolarWakeup’s Solar Pledge that net metering would be at the center of the work I would be doing 4 years later. I have always been a staunch advocate for net metering and solar’s need to focus on putting solar on every home across America. Our policy work is only as strong as the public support for the solar industry which is at all-time high levels. Even President Obama used the growth of solar on homes in his State of the Union speeches citing the GTM stat. I’m excited to be aligned on this segment going forward. Amazing policies driving down the cost of solar for consumers paired with the democratization of solar to the local installers are how we make the solar industry one of the strongest industries in America and I’m excited to play a small role in this value chain.
Back To My Roots. Back to the roof. I spent a few years after graduating college engineering and designing roofing systems for a very large roofing contractor. I learned that there is no faster way to make someone pick up the phone in anger than for them to have a leak in their roof and the same is true for homeowners that install solar. For solar contractors that means they have to install using the best solar mounting systems available on the market. I look forward to traveling across the Country and meeting with many of you and understanding more about the residential solar market.
Not To Worry. SolarWakeup will continue as it has over the past 6 years. There may be days that the summaries are shorter but everything else remains the same. You will see news about my work since it overlaps with yours as well. As always, you can hit reply on any morning email and share your thoughts and comments with me.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 22nd, 2018
What a great day at SolarWakeup Live! in Chicago yesterday. The interviews were great content and more than anything the audience was able to spend plenty of time doing solid networking. Have a great weekend!
Community Solar Goes Big. This isn’t data but its anecdotal from the event. Community solar in Illinois may have over 1GW of projects already in the queue but it may not add up with local zoning approvals so the 1GW could be overstating. That’s quite a bit more than the 150MW expected to be approved in the program.
Program Administrators. No word on the hiring date for the administrators but the RFP responses have been received and selection is underway. This is essentially the last step to get the program going.
Large Scale Issues. If you see a future for large scale solar in Illinois with $5 RECs, please send me your business model to understand.
Hire Local.I can’t overstate how important it is to understand the impact of hiring local labor and train a new workforce for your installations. Don’t be the solar group that hires the random Spencer’s solar company at the lowest cost possible. Make sure you give the newly trained solar folks a chance to get involved. This is vital to growing the solar market in Illinois going forward.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 21st, 2018
Welcome to SolarWakeup Live! Chicago Day. A great crowd of SolarWakeup readers are coming together to hear about the Illinois market and some of the market players that are putting money in play here. Thanks to all for the support. Make sure to subscribe to the SolarWakeup podcast on your Apple Podcast or favorite podcast app to catch the content when we release it.
Raising The Cost Of Solar. Much ado about nothing but let’s give you the insight. Jinko was first to announce a US plant after the 201 tariffs were finalized. With a small exemption cap for cell imports, it seems reasonable that Jinko would use the lowest cost of supply chain to feed the module plant in Jacksonville. Now that the cells from China have a new tariff (in addition to 201) Jinko has had to pivot to their Malaysian supply chain. All this does is increase the cost of modules made in the US. Why would we want that? Why wouldn’t we want US made modules to be as consumer friendly as possible?
Updating MA SMART. If you are paying attention to the MA process, it appears that the fight continues to center around the same issues. When I interviewed the SMART rules experts on Halloween last year, we had the same issues and the DPU still has not finalized the SMART regulations. It also appears that a bill that cleared the Senate last week is lacking momentum in the State House. I hope MA can come together on the issue of solar in the very near future.
Global Solar Modules. Back to the topic of increasing the cost of solar. Now that SQN has basically outlined the strategy to be a cell supplier to US module manufacturing and SunPower has acquired Solarworld USA, what are we really getting for 201 tariffs. A tariff that pays into the Treasury instead of creating pools of capital to drive more US assembly. At the end of the day, with the trade war continuing, we end up with modules at twice the price than they should be. What’s going on with a settlement around the AD/CVD and potentially the 201? Can we get somewhere now that we see how the market responds?
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 20th, 2018
I will be boarding my flight to Chicago shortly and want to thank the incredible SolarWakeup family for making this another fantastic event. After the day of conversations, we will be much more knowledgeable about the solar market in Illinois and how to make some money and create lots of change. See you there!
Getting Into Permitting With Abby Hopper. Frank ‘sits’ down with Abby Hopper of SEIA and discusses the idea of creating more efficiency in the permitting process. It’s great to see the leadership from SEIA have a focus on this issue which is not a defensive policy agenda item. Well worth the 3 minutes to read through and hope you tell SEIA that you appreciate their involvement on this.
A Downgrade For Utilities. Moody’s is raising a red flag. We’ve talked about how big utilities have gotten over the recent years and much of that is financed with access to really cheap debt through corporate bonds. Those bonds are really low coupons, many of the big IOUs have interest rates below 4% for long term capital mainly due to the security offered by the regulated service areas and the associated rate base. Those bonds are trading below par which is not a good thing in a capital market where rates are rising. Lay regulatory uncertainty over that risk and things could get ugly. Keep watching this space.
Mainstream Media Catches On. There is a risk to our short term energy policy surrounded by the starts and stops caused by some State legislatures. The risk is that investors lose confidence in companies and cause the liquidation to occur or sell the company prematurely to someone that sees a longer term vision. Of course, there are other aspects of this that differentiate the US and China but having a longer time horizon is definitely one of them. Now that solar panels are basically double the price than they could be, the US could do a reset and remove the tariffs and duties and double down on the energy transition.
Houston’s Solar Ecosystem. It’s interesting to speak with energy companies in the Houston ecosystem about solar and storage these days. Houston made its mark prospecting and playing the upside which is exactly the vision for solar in the next iteration. Bidding a $25/MWh solar PPA for 20 years is fine, it finances easily and requires tight operations. But there is no upside and little ability to play the spread in a sale. Solar with storage operated in a competitive market, that’s what I’m talking about and Houston gets that, check out the Chronicle’s coverage.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 19th, 2018
Vistra Owns Gas and Coal, Buys Big Storage. Yesterday, word went out that Vistra Energy selected FlexGen for its first energy storage plant. The 10MW / 42MWh system is being added to the Upton 2 Solar Farm, which is located in Texas and has a capacity of 180MW. You’ve heard about FlexGen here on SolarWakeup, as I interviewed their CEO, Josh Prueher, on SolarWakeup Live! a few months ago. Vistra has been in the news because it bought Dynegy and owns 41GW of power across the Country and has in recent times announced the closure of over 4GW of coal. This project is the largest in Texas but I expect this to be surpassed even by itself. Definitely a big win for FlexGen, a longtime supporter of this publication.
What Does This Mean? Let’s hear it directly from the Vistra CEO who spoke to CNBC’s Jim Cramer a few months ago and said that coal will not have a renaissance and the cost of storage is dropping dramatically. This was at the same time that the company was building the Upton 2 solar farm but had not finalized the storage project which now makes financial sense for the shareholders investing in the project. My continued expectation is that storage has the ability to turn renewables into the replacement for power plants we need to get to 100% renewables.
Vistra Sees More Storage In CA and NY. What if, Vistra’s portfolio is replaced by storage? I don’t mean around the edges but MW for MW of capacity. I know this is a hypothetical but if you read the expectations from the Vistra investor’s day presentation, you see that they expect big storage in CA and NY in particular. For example, Dynegy has a couple of power plants in California in load centers near the Bay Area, including Oakland which was a particular focus in the last PG&E storage RFP. That’s 165MW of oil generation replaced by energy storage without generation that could come from faraway solar. You can see the GWh of storage adding up really quickly.
Picking Winners And Losers May Not Work. With an economic policy that looks to pick winners from a previous decade, it looks like the market is saying they don’t care. Even coal operators are shrugging their shoulders at the efforts to save power plants through emergency measures.
Will I See You In Chicago? We’re starting the day with the director of the Illinois Power Agency which recently set the subsidy levels for low income, community solar and C&I solar and working our way through discussions with policy and market experts. No matter what market segment you work in, come join the crowd to get your networking and dealmaking skills on. solarwakeuplive.com for tickets. See you Thursday!
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Yann