This is your SolarWakeup for June 9th, 2017
Growth of Community Solar. There is a lot of value from a development standpoint for community solar. First it separates offtaker from the solar farm location. The geographical separation enables the second value generated by community solar, credit risk mitigation. If an offtaker defaults, moves or otherwise decides to stop paying, the solar farm can put in a new offtaker. Additionally, you can make a play to shorten the offtaker contracts or even go month to month like a cable bill. You lose the distributed network value but solar doesn’t really benefit from that anyways in most cases. If you can get your investors around the regulatory pricing risk, then we should continue to see a growth in this market.
Q1 US Solar Market. Always interesting to see the headlines from one publication to another even though they all got the same data the day before. 2017 will be smaller than 2016 and Q1 was smaller than Q4, no real surprises here. Cost of solar continues to drop in price and we will see how that impacts the future of the market, even in the circumstance of a minimum price situation.
Last night I came back from Los Angeles and will be in San Francisco the week of the 19th to talk more energy storage in a solar market. Looking forward to hearing from many of you.
Is Perry Going Rogue? The comments from nomination hearings to the current comments, Rick Perry seems to be continuously leaving the door open for training for job replacements from coal to renewables. I don’t think it means much nor do I read too much into it except perhaps placating the critics enough to keep doing what he really wants, prolonging the market for incumbent entities.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 8th, 2017
Terraform goes to Brookfield. The courts have cleared the way for Terraform to become owned by Brookfield. In one transaction, Brookfield grows its renewables portfolio in a large way even though it has owned hydro projects for decades.
The SMART program. In Mass, SREC 2 is coming to a close and the SMART program will start being implemented. There are still a few steps in the rulemaking but it looks positive for the next iteration of one of the most lucrative solar markets. The NEM cap needs to be raised and customers need to be reeducated about the expectations but SMART should create a 1.6GW opportunity for the solar market.
NC Solar Reform. The bill is news to me but based on the headline, and what I expect from a NC legislature, the reforms should reduce expectations for the market going forward. Interconnections have slowed down dramatically and a broader PURPA conversation is happening. Let’s see how this bill goes through the process and what happens if it passes.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 7th, 2017
I am finding myself in Los Angeles on the day that Strasburg and Kershaw face each other in a daytime matchup between the Dodgers and Nationals. I know that there must be someone with nice corporate tickets to the Dodgers and cant find anyone to give them to. Sooooo, let me be helpful and take a few off your hands, or join me and we can talk solar while watching a few hall of famers pitch against each other.
Which way would the panels face? Trump pitched the idea of having solar panels on the Mexico wall. This raises a lot of questions for me about which way the panels would face and where the energy would go. You could envision a microgrid wall that takes the energy and powers the technologically advanced wall itself or provide energy to communities near the wall. I’d be interested to see how this would work.
Oh, the games we play. One of the takeaways from many conversations in California about storage is the ‘rate window’ discussion. Everyone knows the windows are changing but no one knows what they are changing to. That is not by accident I think, as IOUs hope to create a market freeze on the solar front before releasing the new time schedules at which point storage and solar will be easily paired together.
Solar Sin City. In one of the most dramatic turn arounds from a policy front, Nevada will go from killing solar to passing a slew of solar friendly bills. As I had reported last month, the timing looked right and now you have net metering coming back, an RPS passing legislature and community solar looking to make an entrance. That is a big swing from a State that had to lay off thousands of solar employees that hopefully will find their way back into the market.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 6th, 2017
Crazy long day of travel and meetings as I continue the road through California. Thank you to many of you for helping point me in the right direction and recommendations on who to talk to about energy storage. No commentary today. More tomorrow.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 5th, 2017
I am on my way to Los Angeles to continue the Energy Storage road show, which means I will learn how badly the Elon Musk tunnels are needed as I sit in traffic.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 2nd, 2017
I don’t feel like talking about it. It took some effort but I wanted to leave out one of the dozens of articles about Trump leaving the Paris agreement. Does it matter? What does it mean? All of that is just content because it doesn’t take more than a sentence to say that it was a ridiculous decision to leave the accord. I haven’t spoken to a reasonable person that thinks otherwise. Onward people, go get stuff done and we will continue to jump over every hurdle thrown at the industry. Nobody is going to do it for us so don’t put your hopes in anyone.
Enjoy your weekend, I will speak to you again on Monday from beautiful Los Angeles. I will be in San Francisco the week of June 19th.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 1st, 2017
As goes Paris, so goes Elon. Unless this is some covfefe, Trump is planning on leaving the Paris agreement. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone but it is telling us all that we should have no hopes for Jared and Ivanka moderating the President on climate change. Elon has said that he would leave the President’s council if Trump leaves the Paris agreement.
Solar’s Playbook. I like the headline, consolidating efforts to push our agenda but let’s see how it plays out. I think we are still some ways away from having a single intervenor in State cases on behalf of the industry associations.
Are you caught up on the EnergyWakeup podcast? More great episodes coming soon.
Grid modernization. The good folks at NCETC are now publishing a quarterly report on grid infrastructure investments. As grid operators realize the future is upon them, this will be a good indicator for where RE penetration can continue and energy storage takes some market share. Well done by the team in NC.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 31st, 2017
Next week I will be in Los Angeles to continue the Energy Storage Road Show. This week, the focus is on large scale operating solar farms. If you are involved in megawatt scale solar in California and are located somewhere in the LA area, let me know.
Give Me More. Exelon is asking for more. Not directly, yet, but the same strategy that went into play in Illinois is back. This time, Exelon is saying that 3 Mile Island will close in 2019 after failing to clear the PJM pricing auction. What better way to determine the value of an asset than in an auction in an competitive market? If the market doesn’t value the energy and capacity from 3 Mile Island, why should ratepayers and taxpayers? I know what some will say, solar gets so much in subsidy, how can you argue that nuclear shouldn’t? I’ll take the day that we have a national grid with no energy subsidies or monopolies because I know solar with storage will be a big winner.
Bipartisan Energy Ignorance. Suniva is now lobbying for stupid protectionism that would be of great harm to the solar industry. The GOP Congressman from Georgia and Democrat from Michigan are citing the talking points about cheap Chinese solar panels. I hope that SEIA has already reached out to those Congressman and educated them about what side effects this would have on the national economy.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 30th, 2017
Step 1 In Proving Me Wrong. Ever since Tesla announced the solar roof, I’ve been skeptical. A hurdle that I thought would take time to clean was getting the class A roof assembly rating. When you permit roofing, you have to show the entire roof assembly’s fire classification that has been tested with UL. Tesla got their approval for the system designated SRxx for the PV tiles, SRNFxx for the non-PV tiles and SRFxx for the flashing parts. Main cost difference from standard tile or shingle roofs is the addition of the ¼” DensDeck made by Georgia Pacific. This is a fire barrier that is not a standard part of your typical shingle or tile roofs. I would have preferred to see a Securock since it is a monolithic board without a facer.
Is this the week? After a week abroad, it seems like the President may use the Paris Agreement to make a point to the globalists. Interestingly, Gary Cohn, said this week that no coal plant would get built because it doesn’t make much sense anymore. Even Senator Manchin scolded Gary Cohn’s comments.
The Energy Storage Road Show is going great. See you in Los Angeles next week!
Down Goes Pierce. The former Arizona Corporation Commission Chairman has been indicted for bribery amongst other things. Nothing solar related but for some reason I don’t think this will be the last we hear about shady business related to the ACC.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 26th, 2017
The US Manufacturer Money Grab. As I predicted, there is no surprise that SolarWorld is joining the 201 petition. Now that the ITC has decided to hear the case, there is a rush to be part of the subsidies that could be created for robots in US factories. If you think I am overreaching my robot comment, go to a module assembly plant in China built in the past year. It’s all robots, we are beyond the stage of people putting modules together. I see a settlement happening with some capital out of the tariff pool being distributed to keep US plants running. But how that capital actually creates sustainable jobs in the US is lost on me, I don’t see it working. One thing that will come out over the next few months are the names behind this petition that hurt the solar industry. Some you know and some you will be surprised about but never underestimate someone’s desire to make money on the backs of others.
Going to the next level. This week I visited the new O&M operations center that Swinerton has built. The subsidiary that handles O&M is SOLV and the facility is first class. With NERC level security and data processes, I had the takeaway that solar is at a level of impact to the grid that warrants more than an excel file. Asset owners have to be accessible and responsible to grid operators with their large interconnects. This seems like only the beginning but it was great to see solar assets being managed in this way. If you wonder what it looked like, think Homer Simpson meets the Jetsons in the power plant control room.
The Energy Storage Road Show is moving forward now scheduling the week of June 5th in Los Angeles!
Market Reforms Need to Happen. I’ve talked about this in the past and agree with the PSEG CEO on the needed market reforms. Deregulation went from monopolies to having three parties, generators, transmission and retailers. Next step of market participation takes the number to well over a dozen. Energy efficiency, frequency operators, etc will make ISOs think hard about how to create a consumer centric market with the right pricing signals.
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Yann