Why Solar Permitting Matters And What You Can Do To Help: A Discussion With SEIA’s Abigail Ross Hopper

[

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent At the beginning of June, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) co-hosted a meeting in San Francisco, the purpose of which was to find ways to reduce extra costs associated with going solar. These costs, known as soft costs, include the cost of permitting, inspections, customer acquisition and other issues. SolarWakeup caught up with SEIA’s President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper to discuss how the meeting went and what the next steps will be. SolarWakeup: What was the purpose of this first meeting? Abigail Ross Hopper (ARH): This was an introductory meeting, and as such, … Read More →

Iowa Utility Could Be First To Reach 100% Renewables By 2021

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Under the radar, something happened last week that could send shockwaves through the renewables’ industry – in a good way. MidAmerican Energy, a division of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (Warren Buffet’s joint), filed an application with the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) to establish ratemaking principles for a 591 MW. By itself, the application is unremarkable, but as usual, it’s the details that make this deal stand out. If approved, the wind farm would allow MidAmerican to become the first utility in the country to be powered 100% by renewables in just three years. by 2021 to … Read More →

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!

News

Have a great day!
Yann

Senate Should Reject Fossil Fuel Hawk for Renewable Energy Office

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent I can’t lie: I’d completely forgotten about poor ol’ Dan Simmons. In a previous engagement, I’d written about Simmons when President Donald J. Trump appointed him as the interim head of Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), a post in which he’s served ever since. And I must admit the reason he’s fallen off my radar is that he hasn’t done anything so horrific as to raise red flags. The EERE budget battles have raged on, with one side trying to slash the budget to the bone while Congress keeps reattaching the meat, … Read More →

IPPs Are Starting To Bet Heavily On The Solar + Storage Game

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent It’s easy to get caught up in a solar + storage discussion that only focuses on batteries – but as independent power producers (IPPs) begin to realize how important solar + storage is going to be in their market, they are quickly realizing the question is far more complex than it seems on the surface. IPPs like Vistra, for example, just signed a deal with FlexGen, an innovative storage provider that is focusing on adding storage to C&I and utility-scale projects, to design and integrate a 10-megawatt/42-megawatt hour FlexGen energy storage system (ESS) at Upton … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for June 18th, 2018

This is a big week in SolarWakeup, our first full day SolarWakeup Live! event in Chicago is on Thursday. I’m excited about the solar market these days and even though there are challenges, we have markets like Illinois to look forward to. I’d love to see you there, get your ticket at solarwakeuplive.com
Another Tariff. Solar Silence. On Friday the Trump White House added another layer of costs on solar by imposing 25% tariffs on cells and modules from China. The impact is minimal on the face of it because AD/CVD already caused much of the supply chain to be out of China. This reality is more complicated after the 201 tariffs and several manufacturers planning on building module plants in the US. Those plants are now in jeopardy because they essentially lost access to the Chinese supply chain of cells. My question, as usual, is who wanted solar on the list of tariffs given that we were just on the tariff list? Where was the industry’s lobbying efforts and quite frankly it’s time to change our lobbyists because I see this as 0 for 4 in the tariff fights. The silence is deafening indeed.
IPP Deals Show New Grid Resilience. Tomorrow, a lot more on this topic but let me give you a highlight. The past decade has been about intermittent solar being added to the grid. First, there isn’t enough solar to matter. Second, we have to limit the amount of solar and charge them for the grid services. Third, we have stop letter solar connect because the caps have been hit. Now we are going to see a fundamental shift of solar being the solution to grid services with energy storage. I have said this publicly, we are less than a decade away from every solar installation having energy storage on it and even retrofitting most of the solar plants that are already operating.
Energy Subsidies. Solar will stop fighting for its subsidies when the energy sector and monopolies give up their subsidies which are much bigger and more effective than solar’s.
Solar Fires, A Big Story? My question to you. Are these stories coverage of events or worthy of a discussion?
PACE In PA. Frank has a great story about one of my favorite markets within solar, PACE. PACE was one of the fastest growing legislative movements in the 2010 era and since then has tried to find its place. I think we are really close to that reality coming true because PACE is now pricing below the cost of debt with longer terms for many solar projects. It also has the potential to open up the C&I markets by removing the credit barrier for DG PPAs. Great for the PA solar market to get this moving in the right direction. Make sure to click on the CleanFund link below to get some idea on the pricing available.

News

Have a great day!
Yann

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.

News

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 →