Clean Energy Credit Union Will Back Solar Projects

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By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened:  Yann Brandt sat down with Blake Jones and Terri Mickelsen, the driving forces behind the Colorado-based Clean Energy Credit Union (CECU), which they expect will: provide loans to people who want to invest in products like solar installations, electric vehicles, energy efficiency and other similar investments. give new clean energy markets another financing option. It’s also important to note the CECU is a federally insured credit union, where advocates and enthusiasts can put their money and feel good about how their money is being used. SolarWakeup’s View:  I can’t believe someone hasn’t done … Read More →

How Should We Categorize Community Solar?

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened:  A debate, started by SolarWakeup founder Yann Brandt, has been joined over this simple question: Where should community solar be slotted in the U.S. Solar Market Insight report? Currently, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research categorize community solar as part of the commercial & industrial segment for report purposes. Yann Brandt, on the other hand, believes the location of the system is more important than the offtaker, which would instead put the majority of community solar projects in the utility category. SolarWakeup’s View:  If you were coming to this article … Read More →

South Carolina Solar Soul Under Attack

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened:  The burgeoning South Carolina solar industry is being debated in the state’s legislature, with two conflicting bills offering significantly different visions of its future. The utilities are at again (by which I mean lying) about a cost-shift to reduce how much the utilities pay solar customers under net metering A second bill would remove a 2% cap on how much solar utilities have to accept, a measure designed to expand the industry” Meanwhile, solar advocates worry that Dominion Energy’s attempt to buy the parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCEG) could … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for March 19th, 2018

C&I and Community Solar. Last week as we went through the 2017 Solar Market Insight, I was a bit surprised to see that non-residential (C&I) grew in a year where the market corrected from the 2016 rush. As I walked through the numbers and checked with SEIA, I was surprised to find out that the category included community solar. I don’t understand the logic of this, given that almost all community solar projects are large ground mount projects. The notion that community solar is as logical as LADWP FIT deals being considered utility scale. It would also require contract for difference/direct access projects to be considered as non-residential in this line of thought. I don’t see how any of that would work out and therefore believe that the Solar Market Insight needs to be revised with community solar going into the utility scale category.

Women in Solar, Sunrun and Johns Hopkins. Lynn Jurich is probably the best known woman in solar and deservedly so, taking Sunrun from infancy to IPO and beyond. I’d love to see her not he mainstream airwaves more given her position as a public company CEO, CNBC needs her on a regular appearance to counter the daily Joe Kernen nonsense. Sunrun has grown up in many ways as well. Years ago, it was squeezed between SolarCity and Vivint Solar when it appeared that SunEdison’s acquisition of Vivint Solar would make it hard for Sunrun to rise above, with many calling for the company to sell to a strategic so it would not suffer from possible closure. I would be remiss not to point out the Johns Hopkins University (Go Hop!) alumni, Ed Fenster who founded the company alongside Lynn a decade ago.

Germany’s Opportunity. Decarbonization ‘experts’ like to point out that Germany, with all the wind and solar, is increasing its carbon output, mostly due to the intense use of coal power. (Natural gas has been a political problem given much of it comes from Russia) That being said, I see a real opportunity for Germany to get to 100% renewable energy very quickly with large scale integration of energy storage. Offshore win is readily available to make up for the Alaska equivalent solar output. I grew up in and worked in Germany for many years and this feels like a restart of the great market which served as a baseline for the global growth.

Will SunPower Get Relief? SunPower filed its request for exemption from the 201 tariff on Friday. Frank has your coverage on this, right here

A Poll On Your Work. I’m hoping to spend more time on working to get your involvement with policy makers to increase. The goal is to get you to spend 10 hours per year with legislators and perhaps one day to the same level as union painters, 10 hours per month. The first step is to get you to tell me about your company, and if you make things. There is a focus on manufacturing in solar right now, so this is step 1 in our journey together. I can’t do this alone but as a team we will get better at this organizing. Take this poll

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Have a great day!
Yann

SunPower Fights Back, Challenges Their Inclusion In Tariffs

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: Earlier this morning, SunPower filed its formal request to be excluded from the Trump Administration’s 30% tariff on imported solar modules, specifically Exclude solar cells based on copper-plated, IBC technology. Exclude solar modules based on copper-plated, IBC technology. Make the product exclusions described above retroactive to Feb. 7, 2018 (when the tariffs went into effect) and direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to refund any tariffs paid on the above-described products. SolarWakeup’s View:  All we can say is that it’s about time. SunPower, a module manufacturer and one of the staunchest opponents of tariffs … Read More →

Microsoft Turns Singapore Into Its Own Solar Central

  By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: Microsoft, in an interview with Greentech Media, explained why it was turning to approximately 60 MW of distributed solar to power its data centers in Singapore. Essentially: The company said it had been burned before when it tried to build utility-scale solar projects in other countries, thanks to permitting issues and other local constrictions. The limited land in Singapore to build a large-scale solar plant left them with one option that the city-state has in abundance: rooftop space. SolarWakeup’s View: Microsoft, which doesn’t even appear on the Top 10 Businesses for solar … Read More →

Zombie Lie Informs Kentucky’s Attempt To Kill Its Solar Industry

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: Controversial Kentucky House Bill (HB) 227 passed the House by four votes yesterday. Now the bill moves on to the Senate. It would

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: Controversial Kentucky House Bill (HB) 227 passed the House by four votes yesterday. Now the bill moves on to the Senate. It would Reduce the amount future Kentucky solar customers are paid under its net metering plan, based on A mythical cost shift from solar users to non-solar users (or, as I refer to it, the “lie that won’t die.” SolarWakeup’s View:  This damn thing again? If you’ve been paying any attention to the broader solar news cycle, you’ve heard of Kentucky HB 227. It’s the latest attempt by utilities to kill an emerging … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for March 16th, 2018

Solar Messaging. This morning, most media outlets released their coverage of the 2017 solar market data which showed headlines of a 30% overall drop and drop in residential solar sector. So if your editor wants an Elon Musk failed or Trump kills solar headline, you could have written it with that focus. Coverage from Axios and CNBC, which don’t tend to have an anti-solar tweak didn’t come out with the most positive headlines. At SolarWakeup, I see what gets clicks and bad headlines are adored by readers so that’s part of the story but the other part of it was the messaging. 2016 was a banner year for political reasons and 2017 had 201 headwinds throughout the year. You’d have to get to the bottom of the press release to see that so while no-one in solar was surprised when I spoke with them, the non-solar worker reading mainstream headlines would think this space is struggling.

Scary Grid Stuff. Utility execs stay awake at night thinking about cyber attacks against the grid. Now the Trump administration is making he known unknown visible to the masses. Personally I don’t know what to do with the information except add it to the bullets on the slide of why the energy system needs more distributed generation and flexibility.

Trade And Manufacturing. China hawk Peter Navarro is telling Wall Street to ‘just relax’ regarding the tariffs. Saying that our trade deficits need to be stood up against. I have a question for Navarro. What would you say to the American worker that takes raw aluminum that is imported to the US and makes patented US manufactured solar racking products? Just relax? What do you say to the banker, lawyer and solar developer that just dropped a 20MW deal in Texas because of a solar module tariff? Just relax? Now that 201 manufacturing hype is coming back to reality, the cheerleaders of ‘new manufacturing’ are nowhere to be found because they are wrong, as wrong as most of them have been over the years on most things solar.

Weekend, Next Week. For the readers that joined our March Madness bracket, most of you are rooting big for UVA. For the two of you that picked Arizona to win it all, you will not be writing a SolarWakeup paragraph this year. Next week we will all get together with our friends from Vote Solar. It’s not too late for you to join me in San Francisco and lots of your solar friends. Reminder, if you spend $1,000 or more on tickets you get a space in this opening text. Just send me the receipt.

WAKEUP20. In 4 weeks, many of you will be with me as we bring SolarWakeup Live! to San Francisco to hear from leaders in venture capital, policy and CCA energy procurement. I’d love for your to join me as well, take 20% off an already very cheap ticket.

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Have a great day!
Yann

The Motley Fool Emphasizes The “Fool” Part In Solar Manufacturing Report

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: The Motley Fool, a stock analysis website, wrote an article with the headline - Solar-Manufacturing Renaissance Already Falling Apart, which then went on to

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: The Motley Fool, a stock analysis website, wrote an article with the headline – Solar-Manufacturing Renaissance Already Falling Apart, which then went on to Express surprise that the Trump 30% tariffs on solar modules hasn’t had module companies flocking to the United States in droves. Come to the shocking (not shocking) conclusion that maybe the tariffs won’t drive an American module renaissance, let alone a manufacturing renaissance. SolarWakeup’s View:  There’s a larger question here, sparked by the odd headline: Can something fall apart if it was almost entirely mythical to begin with? When Trump … Read More →

Hey, California Utility: John Grisham Would Like His Latest Plot Back

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: If you’ve ever doubted whether utilities fear that solar will put them out of business, read Sammy Roth’s excellent report in The Desert Sun, in which he

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent What Happened: If you’ve ever doubted whether utilities fear that solar will put them out of business, read Sammy Roth’s excellent report in The Desert Sun, in which he Discovered that a public utility had an “oppo research” department to find dirt on the owner of Renova Energy, an outspoken critic of the utility, and Used ratepayer money to hire private investigators for this fishing expedition. SolarWakeup’s View: Let’s get this out of the way first: If you’re not reading Sammy Roth in The Desert Sun regularly, what the heck is wrong with you? He covers solar … Read More →