Report: New Tariffs Should Have Only A Minimal Effect On Solar (With One Notable Exception)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Another day, another set of new tariffs. In his ongoing attempt to start trade wars with every country around the globe, President Donald J. Trump has decided to impose around $50 billion in new tariffs on products coming in from China. And while initial reports suggested solar modules and cells would not be on the list, Roth Capital Partners issued its guidance on Friday saying they may be included. And the entire module industry shrugged at the news – with the exception of one module company that is planning on building a new facility in … Read More →

Pennsylvania Governor Sets Aggressive PACE For Clean Energy Growth In The Keystone State

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Yesterday, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed legislation designed to open up more clean-energy investment in the state by creating a statewide Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program into law. PACE is a financing mechanism that enables low-cost, long-term funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation upgrades to commercial or industrial properties through property taxes. This allows businesses to invest in upgrades like renewable energy while paying no money upfront. In states where it’s available, PACE has proven to be a popular program. As Wolf said in his statement announcing the signing: This innovative … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for June 15th, 2018

Will Suniva Find A Buyer? SQN has taken over the company formerly and still, for now, known as Suniva. It will now seek strategic partners, i.e. sell the company, to someone interested in the intellectual property, equipment, and other assets. The obvious name that comes up is the manufacturer that recently announced a Georgia module plant for which it will need cells, which Suniva used to make in Georgia and ship to Asia to be assembled. We shall see.
Industry Wants Certainty On Climate. Amy Harder of Axios has the industry insight on a letter sent Trump stating that climate regulations would create American jobs. Solar also has some great American jobs, some manufacturers making many of the solar mounts and associated equipment in the US.
The New Utility Normal. No more coal, slowing down gas and more renewables. Next week, I will highlight what is happen in the IPP market because those that don’t operate in the monopoly utility market have a particular insight on what is going to happen next for the power plant owners and investors.
SunPower Continues Adapting. We had this first but here it is officially, a partnership between SunPower and Sonnen. I’m a fan of the solar plus storage play having lived in a hurricane zone for many years.
SolarWakeup Live! This Thursday in Chicago. Top solar folks and a marathon day of interviews with me. And if you have seen my interviews, you know that you are going to get information out of the conversation that helps your business. SolarWakeuplive.com is the place to get your tickets.

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Have a great day!
Yann

Looks Like Suniva’s Finally Up For Sale (No, Really, We Mean It This Time)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent It appears Suniva may finally be ready to undergo the sale we’ve all been anticipating for more than a year. SQN Capital Management, the company’s largest creditor and the one who once tried to get a $55 million payment from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to make the trade case go away last May, announced that the bankruptcy court has finally awarded it full title to “the cutting edge technology, licenses, and manufacturing capacity” of the company. Which, most solar observers assume, means all that will soon be up for sale. It’s the only logical … Read More →

Intersolar North America Honors Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. with First-Ever Champion of Change Lifetime Achievement Award

Will We All End Up Working For SunPower?: Module Company Launches Battery Partnership With sonnen

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent SunPower is proving that you can be everything to everybody without trying to be the expert in everything yourself – a business model that could bode well for the company’s future as the U.S. solar industry continues to grow. First, it purchased mid-tier module maker SolarWorld and announced plans to take over its Oregon manufacturing facility to broaden the scope of its module products. Tuesday, it announced it was selling its microinverter line to industry powerhouse Enphase and converting its AC module line to Enphase inverters instead of continuing to manufacture the products themselves. Which … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for June 14th, 2018

Chicago Is The Place To Be. 1 Week Out! We are about to be at capacity and our agenda looks great. Folks from around the industry are flying into Chicago to be a part of the SolarWakeup breakdown of the Illinois solar market. Get your ticket at solarwakeuplive.com
Trump Gets FERCed. We have a standoff. Perry wanted a coal bailout, then a grid stability study and Trump went for the bailout. But when FERC went to the US Senate, no commissioner would state the need for the bailout, because as we all know it is not needed. What we should be talking about is creating a shorter response time market in the ISOs so that storage and real flexible assets can find the value that they create. Give me a 30 second market and you’ll see the 21st century grid come to life.
Mr. Governor, Instant Permits? The event I have yet to attend and would like to is VERGE in Hawaii produced by GreenBiz. In his comments, Governor Ige spoke about the need for governments to be agile in disruptive moments and when it comes to renewables Hawaii has definitely attempted to stay with the advancements even with the setbacks that were sometimes enacted. So in a week when we look to bring behind the meter small solar to our utopian vision of instant solar installed perfectly, let’s ask Hawaii to be the first to buy into the idea. If you haven’t caught my conversation on the topic, catch it here.
First Solar Rocks Ohio. The plant is not news but the plant has now broken ground. First Solar is investing hundreds of millions in the expansion of the plant to take on the capacity that the utility scale market is looking to fill. With gigawatts of coal and gas coming offline across the Country and solar plus storage offers reaching incredible numbers as we outlined earlier this week, solar will be asked to fill the gap and First Solar is bound to take advantage of this. If you ever wondered how well Wall Street understands our market, look at the one week chart on FSLR after the announcement from China.
Bit Me Up Scotty. Captain Kirk is all in on solar mined bitcoin, while it may not be Potcoin (I will share my Dennis Rodman story with you all at a later time) this is better. It’s almost as good as the solar powered honey that my friends at Connexus Energy sent me after my interview with their CEO at the Midwest Solar Expo a few months ago. Solar powered everything, feel free to send it my way.

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Have a great day!
Yann

FERC Commissioners Tell Senate: Coal, Nuke Bailout Unnecessary

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and told the Senators what the rest of the world already knows: Water is wet. The Pope is still Catholic. And the nuclear and coal plant bailout Trump demanded is entirely unnecessary. While the solar industry has been saying this since Trump first floated this Bob Murray special two years ago, Energy Law 360 reports that when asked if the bailout of failing nuclear and coal plants was important to national security, the crickets could be heard … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for June 13th, 2018

AC Modules Take Two. Enphase is buying the Sunpower micro inverter business, some of which tracks back to the Austin based inverter company, Solarbridge Technologies. A cash and stock deal also gives Enphase a path into Sunpower’s AC modules which caused the stock to jump up. Sunpower already has the market share in resi with its strong dealer network, which now translates to more market share for Enphase. Great deal for both sides in my opinion, well done.
A Tough Day At Tesla. Elon went to Twitter to publish his company wide email yesterday announcing a 9% cut to the workforce at Tesla plus the end of the retail relationship with Home Depot. I don’t have the details on the 9% that are going to lose their jobs but I have to think that solar will not be unaffected and I always hate to hear that. This will lead to a stronger Tesla and that is something I support. If any solar folks from Tesla are looking for the next big gig, let me know and I’ll do what I can to support your search.
An Idea For Elliot. Elliot which is behind the sale of NRG renewables unit is also involved in the Sempra divestment of its solar assets. I think Elliot should consider doing the same in the IOU business units, many of which have surpassed the monopoly revenue streams. I’m not going to call out particular names but some could double their market cap if they were split and I’m not a financial guru like the analysts are Elliot. Let’s see where they go next.
Big Money For Resi Solar. Vivint tapped the capital markets to lower its cost of debt funding for its projects. This is not only to lower the costs but also to refinance some of the likely shorter term capital for the projects that were placed into service. In any scenario $811million in capital is a big deal and it’s good to see the interest to get involved in this.
Growing US Solar. The quarter’s solar market insight is out and 2018 is on track to be on par with 2017, which is unfortunate because it could have been so much better. On the bright side, we have new great markets in Illinois which we will discuss next Thursday in Chicago, a few tickets remain at solarwakeuplive.com

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Have a great day!
Yann

Enphase To Purchase SunPower Microinverter Business

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent After the stock market closed, Enphase Energy – the once-struggling microinverter company that is seeing a resurgence under CEO Badri Kothandaraman, announced it was buying SunPower’s microinverter business for $25 million and 7.5 million shares of common stock. Enphase stock rose 16% after the announcement. The transaction means Enphase will now supply the microinverter technology for SunPower’s AC modules instead of SunPower producing the microinverters on their own. Tom Werner, SunPower CEO, tipped his hand about why the transaction took place in the release. He said the transaction will allow SunPower to “continue containing costs, … Read More →