This is your SolarWakeup for May 24th, 2018

Solar Goes For Meghan Nutting! We are just a few weeks away from the June 26th primary election for Meghan Nutting. Meghan is running for Colorado’s 5th District in the State House and she is also the VP of Public Policy for Sunnova. She’s been a solar advocate to advance our industry and now is the time for all of us to come together and put Meghan into the State House to represent Denver. First, help her raise money and send $5, which you can do here. Second, if you have friends in Denver, you have to get them to help her knock on doors. This race gets decided in the primary so we have just a few weeks away. If you want to learn more about Meghan, you can listen to my interview with her.
Elon’s Twitter Rant, My 2 Cents. Elon went on a twitter rant yesterday about the media. One of his points was that much of the coverage is negative and when it comes to all things Tesla, negative headlines get a lot of clicks. How do I know? I have the unique vantage point of being able to compare many outlets and many headlines. Unlike publications that can only compare one headline over another through internal A/B testing, we have the ability to track headlines across publications. The truth is that headlines matter more to readers than the publication and any story that is about a bankruptcy, problem or negative issue gets significantly more traction than anything else. Case in point, the story this week about Cypress Creek cancelling projects was clicked by almost every person that clicked any story at all.
My First Solar Project. Hats off to Portland for going out for an RFP to drive the best deal possible for its customers. Two of my first solar projects were in Portland, one for Nike and one with Portland Gas and Electric. Fun times!
Value Of Solar, Infinite. $20k to go. $20k left to raise to help save over 200 babies over the next year in a single hospital in Sierra Leone. Because of unreliable power, almost half of the babies that go into the NICU in the hospital pass away. $20k is less than $5 per reader today, so skip the Starbucks and send the money. Please!
New Jersey Bills Signed. Frank has your coverage on the bill signing in NJ, keeps an important market going forward and creates a few new opportunities for solar to develop projects.
Big Oil + Storage + Solar. Another oil investment into storage, this time Shell into Sonnen. Keep watching the trend of auto, IPPs and oil converging around solar + storage. Sparkspread reported that a storage developer with pipeline went into market for acquisition yesterday, if you have info about that, let me know.

News

Have a great day!
Yann

New Jersey Solar’s Nightmare Over As Governor Murphy Signs Bills

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent It took longer than many observers expected, but New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed into law bills that will boost clean energy production in his state, with solar playing a central role in this growth. Murphy also issued Executive Order No. 28, which formally recognized climate change as a threat to the state and has established a multi-departmental committee to establish a 2019 Energy Master Plan. The mandate specifically cites improving both wind and solar development as one of the key goals of the Master Plan moving forward. The governor had run on an aggressive … Read More →

Project Bo, Bringing Life And Power To Sierra Leone, Is Under Construction

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In an industry with some tough stories to tell these days, sometimes it’s worth pausing and savoring a story that is undeniably and unalterably good – and such is the case with Project Bo. The project, designed to purchase, install and maintain a 20kW solar and battery system to provide an uninterrupted 24/7 power supply to the oxygen concentrators and baby warmers at Bo Government Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, is finally under construction after raising 82% of the funds necessary to complete the project. They are currently around $20,000 away from reaching 100% of … Read More →

The Fight To Lower Solar Cost To Capital Continues: New Solar Finance Council Is Formed

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Financing is often the most difficult part of getting a solar deal done, and lower the costs of capital is one of the keys to unlocking solar’s full potential. To that end, one man with experience in researching the problem has created a new working group to address just those issues. Called the Solar Finance Council (SFC), the group is being headed by Mike Mendelsohn as executive director.Mendelsohn previously led the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) work in project finance and capital markets. Prior to SEIA, he established the Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC) … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for May 23rd, 2018

Strand My Assets, Not My Money. RMI is out with a report that outlines the long term investment thesis for new natural gas plants. Hint: it’s not good. The report finds that like many coal plants today, gas plants don’t provide the best financial return in the future and could find themselves pushed aside for financial reasons. This isn’t just a problem for private investors, consumers that finance these plants, guarantee their financial return, are the quasi investors within regulated monopoly areas. If this sounds familiar just look at the nuclear bailouts and requested coal bailouts in the news today.
Show Me The Wires. SEIA’s report on grid modernization makes the point that RMI found above. The future of energy will value the grid of the future. This means that more distributed generation will require a grid with less wires. Anything that ends up pushing energy from a central power plant to the loads will have a value that is significantly diminished. That future may be okay for solar and wind farms that have no exposure to fuel costs and volatility but it becomes harder for more traditional fuel. Distributed generation needs to be a central part of everything we do as a solar industry and that benefits even those that are not focused on DG.
Talk To Michael. There is a statement that comes up in some conversations with politicians. It doesn’t have to be said often because lobbyists get the process for political leaders very quickly. After a pitch on an issue with some politicians, emphasis on some, the elected will say something like, “that’s very interesting, I’d like to learn more, please talk to XYZ.” In Trump’s universe, it may have been “Talk to Michael.” At the very least, this is what one nuclear power plant was thinking and maybe solar should have been told to TTM. Of course I kid, mostly, I think.
Long Term Vision, Short Term Problems. 3 months go by very quickly and changing the energy market in 3 months increments is basically impossible. If access to capital is required in order to make that change work, then having to focus on the quarterly earnings makes that difficult. So how do we merge the desire for transparency in public companies with the hope to allow companies to change the norms.
Windy City, Sunny Market. Get your ticket for SolarWakeup Live! Chicago. Part of the event will be personal matchmaking between those that have projects or pipeline with those that have capital. The one day event you will not want to miss. solarwakeuplive.com

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Have a great day!
Yann

The Tariffs Are Taking A Devastating Toll

By Tony Clifford, CDO of Standard Solar As a general rule, it doesn’t hurt to be right—but when it comes to the devastating effects the Section 201 solar tariffs are having on the industry, I wish I’d been wrong. Last year, two foreign-owned companies held the U.S. solar industry hostage to their own selfish needs, and 9,800 people lost their jobs in 2017 alone. And I have to be blunt: 2018 has not gotten off to any better start. I’ve heard some so-called industry “experts” suggest the tariffs are having the desired effect, i.e. that solar manufacturing jobs are coming … Read More →

We’ve Got No Wires To Hold Us Down: SEIA Completes Grid Modernization Series

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In the future, there will be no wires to hold down the transmission of electricity – at least that’s what the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) believes is part of the future of grid modernization, according to a white paper it released last week. The paper , DER and the Non-Wires Solutions Opportunity, examined how utilities are investing in distributed electricity production instead of the traditional centralized model that has dominated grid development since the 19th century. [wds id=”3″] “Today, customers are increasingly seeking more control of their own energy, and with the rapidly falling … Read More →

This is your SolarWakeup for May 22nd, 2018

Q2 Sentiment Survey. The second quarter sentiment survey is up and running. Please take 30 seconds and answer these 5 questions and tell us how you feel. This is a survey for individuals so it doesn’t matter what role you play in solar. We will release the results at SolarWakeup Live! Chicago on June 21st, you should have your ticket already!
IOUs Getting Bigger. NextEra, the parent company of Florida Power & Light, is buying the Florida subsidiary of Southern Company, Gulf Power. Moreover it is acquiring several power plants that serve other Florida entities like Orlando and FMPA, which previously signed a solar PPA with NextEra.
Innovating The Midwest Energy. AEE is out with a memo to the gubernatorial candidates in Ohio. It outlines 5 points to consider in growing the advanced energy economy in Ohio, which just a few years ago had the potential of becoming a major solar market. It has solar success in the Youngstown area with the manufacturing base of First Solar and its series 6 rollout.
CA Solar Homes, Explained. When CA put in place a solar mandate on all new homes, the details are more nuanced than solar on every home in the State. I wasn’t planning on breaking it down, mostly because reading regulatory documents doesn’t fit into my calendar but I bring you the wonderful reporting from Julia Pyper. The details are detailed and I assure you, don’t start reading the breakdown without sufficient time. I never said it would be short!
Electrify Everything. Keyless entry. Air conditioned seats (I live in Florida). Regenerative braking. Adaptive cruise control. These are some of the features I want in my cars. They simply make the car a better driving experience and make our roads safer. Some of these features are part of why electric vehicles make for better modes of transportation and why the transition will speed up. When a city buys a new fleet of buses, why would they buy ICE? I don’t see it lasting much longer before all new fleet purchases are electric.
Helping AHJs. I wish that there was a way to speak to all AHJs overseeing solar at the same time. First, I’d like to make sure they are paying attention to the small details that make sure solar is installed properly without causing roof leaks or affecting the roof in a bad way. In the meantime we have IREC continuing the important work of teaching solar to AHJs.

News

Have a great day!
Yann

Ohio AEE Launches Advanced Energy Roadmap To Grow Economy, Jobs

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Ohio Advanced Energy Economy (Ohio AEE), a business coalition that supports a clean energy future in the state, unveiled its five point plan to move the state closer to having a clean-energy-based economy. Ohio AEE says its plans outline market-based policy considerations that would create thousands of jobs and bring billions of investment dollars into the state. [wds id=”3″] “Advanced energy supports more than 105,000 jobs in Ohio, but policy uncertainty over the last six years has artificially slowed the growth of this booming industry,” said Ray Fakhoury, legislative affairs director for Ohio Advanced Energy … Read More →

More Power To The Powerful: NextEra Buys Two More Florida Utilities For $6.5 Billion

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent In a deal that gives the owner of Florida Power & Light even more influence on electrical policy in the Sunshine State, NextEra Energy has entered into agreements to purchase two more Florida utilities for nearly $6.5 billion. NextEra announced plans to purchase Gulf Power from Southeast utility giant Southern Company, as well as Florida City Gas. It will also purchase ownership interests in two natural gas plants currently owned by Southern. [wds id=”3″] The transactions will give the owner of Florida’s largest utility more incentive to push a natural gas – rather than a … Read More →