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

Utilities To Trump EPA : Thanks But No Thanks To Your Coal-Saving Efforts

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent They don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but … At the Electrification 2018 conference, Greentech Media was anxious to find out how utilities felt about the new rules surrounding easing regulations on coal plants. Would they turn away from renewable energy and decide to keep their failing coal plants open? Would they slow the pace of renewable energy purchases? Would this signal the end to renewable energy as we know it? Well, what the Greentech Media editors (which surprised no one, including them) is that most utilities, no matter where they were in the United States, … Read More →

Could Utah Solar Be Cratering A Mere Year Before SPI Comes To The State? (No.)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Could the Utah solar market be cratering just one year before Solar Power International heads to Salt Lake City. No. The answer is no. Despite breathless reporting over the weekend that implied that Utah’s market has hit the skids, most observers believe the market is simply correcting itself after full retail-rate net metering went away in November. And while installations are off 23% so far in 2018, it’s far too early to tell whether the decline will continue as consumers adjust to the new rules. [wds id=”3″] As Jasen Lee reported in The Deseret News, … Read More →

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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Have a great day!
Yann