Intersolar North America Honors Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. with First-Ever Champion of Change Lifetime Achievement Award
Intersolar and ees North America, the premier solar and energy storage events, will award California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. with the first-ever Intersolar Champion of Change Lifetime Achievement AWARD. Each year, Intersolar recognizes an individuals’ commitment to supporting the development of renewable energy with the Champion of Change AWARD, hosted in partnership with the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA). The Lifetime Achievement AWARD honors pioneers in clean technology and their outstanding accomplishments in advancing the adoption of renewable energy. “California’s solar industry owes a debt of gratitude to Governor Brown for his decades of support,” said Bernadette del … Read More
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.
News
Opinions:
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
News
Opinions:
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
Could Perovskites Be Right Around the Corner? Solar-Tectic Earns Patents For Thin-Film Perovskite Technology
By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Perovskites have been the hot solar technology for several years now without, frankly, a lot to show for it. But one company – Solar-Tectic – has reached the patent stage for its thin-film perovskite technology. Could perovskite modules be close behind? The answer is a definite maybe. According to the company’s release, the breakthrough is the width of the bottom layer in the tandem cell. The release says: Wafer sized bottom poly- and monocrystalline silicon layers in PERC, PERL, HIT, HJ, or perovskite/silicon tandem cells are typically 200-280 microns thick, whereas ST’s thin-film crystalline inorganic … Read More
Solar FlexRack Completes Shipments to 71 MW Solar Project in North Carolina
Solar FlexRack™, a division of Northern States Metals and an innovative leader in photovoltaic mounting and solar tracker solutions, has completed shipments of its G3-X fixed tilt racking system to Brantley solar farm, a large-scale solar project in North Carolina. The 71 MWdc project, which is about 30 miles east of Raleigh, was developed and is currently being built by Cypress Creek Renewables, a leading national solar developer, builder and operator. Brantley Solar Project in North Carolina is being installed with high-quality Solar FlexRack G3-X racking. The solar plant will generate enough electricity to power over 8,000 homes. Steve Daniel, … Read More
Soltec Supplies Trackers to the Largest PV Power Plant in Colombia PPA for 100 MW of Solar
Soltec, a leading manufacturer and supplier of single-axis solar trackers and related services in large ground-mount PV projects, is supplying 2,776 units of its SF7 tracker equipment at an 86.2 MW PV power plant in northern Colombia’s Cesar department. The SF7 trackers will mount around 250,000 solar modules to follow the sun and optimize their yield performance. The plant will generate an average of 176 GWh of clean energy per year, becoming the largest solar power plant in Colombia. The PV plant is currently under construction and will be operational by the end of 2018. “Currently, Colombia’s energy generation depends … Read More
U.S. Solar Continues To Grow Despite Significant Headwinds
By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent First the good news: The overall U.S. solar industry grew year over year by 13%, adding 2.5 GW-DC in the first quarter of 2018. Now the bad news: That’s a 37% quarter-over-quarter decrease. So the latest quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insights Report, put out by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research, is a bit of a mixed bag. But the fact that the U.S. solar market has shown any growth at all, in light of heavy tariffs on module imports, flat residential growth and a significant decrease in “non-residential” installations, is a … Read More