This is your SolarWakeup for September 18th, 2017
Internet is back but the shutters will stay up as everyone keeps their eyes on Hurricane Maria for round 2. Maria is currently decimating the Caribbean again and will hit Puerto Rico this week as a major hurricane. If we are thinking about grid infrastructure and storm readiness, 2017 may be the year we re-evaluate the way we do power.
Three Right Turns To Paris. On Saturday, rumors came out of DC that the White House may be thinking about staying in the Paris agreement, which resulted in a questionable approval from this writer. Paris has always been a self-reported, non-binding accord but staying in is important from a leadership and societal standpoint. Many different White House voices came out since the reporting that contradict and confirm the news so I guess we all remain glued to our Twitter feeds, follow me @yannbrandt.
What Corporates Want. As Facebook chooses an Ohio location for its newest data center, clean energy availability always comes up. When we spoke with Sam Arons from Google, he said the same thing, data centers would not get located where renewable energy is not available or prominent. Now that Amazon is looking to place its HQ2 with 50,000 jobs, cities around the Country are looking around to see where they can get more renewable energy to tout as well as mass transportation. My point is that the new workforce’s values mimic the companies that invest billions. Clean air, clean water and clean energy are not ideals to think about when it’s too late, do it and you will stand out.
Grid Study, Net Metering Study. Is this round two of a useless, pre-ordained DOE study? First, I didn’t realize that net metering became a national issue. Power to the States only pertains to some things I guess. Moreover, it seems that things being left out of the scope mean that the study is looking for a certain result. According to the article, societal benefits and network effects are amongst the issues that will not be reviewed. I guess we shall say, stay tuned…
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 15th, 2017
As we head into the weekend, an update from South Florida misery. Power is back! Wifi is down. I don’t know which one is worse (I’m kidding, but it is close). Over the next few weeks, I want to examine and share with you my experience going through this storm. I wrote on my facebook that for the first time I felt like a climate change refugee with the primary mission of keeping my family safe, driving hours on end to get out of harm’s way. I came back to my County, completely destroyed thinking about the regulations that focused on important yet small (in comparison) priorities. Reading about number of workers brought in to fix the infrastructure, I start to think about the role, incentives and oversight of monopoly utilities. This includes Comcast, currently on my shitlist because I have to tether to my AT&T phone.
Time To Coal Off The Planet. Every coal plant should be turned off tomorrow. We’ve seen how resilient the planet is when we stopped doing stupid stuff like polluting rivers or destroying forests. Coal electrified industries but now coal is bad for people, planet and profit. The government should buy the plants and promptly shut them down. Seems abrupt but it’s necessary and urgent. If you think about it, there would be issues with power markets but I don’t actually think the grid would suffer except in pockets which would quickly be remedied by renewable power, cogen and energy storage.
Will California Go 100%? Well it doesn’t look like the 100% RPS bill will happen this year. Some corporations and PG&E came out against it. Surprisingly the electrical union came out against it as well, still thinking that traditional power could be bigger than renewables. My guess is that has more to do with the front office tenure than actual business strategy given that RPS in California doesn’t count distributed generation and most large scale is built by unions. Legislation never really dies, SB100 had a great session and looks that much better going forward.
September 22nd. A lot of talk from SPI centered around the 201 petition. Having spent the weekend in Atlanta, I kept going back and forth on reaching out to the Suniva people. I’ve said it before, they are good people and we’ve always had a good relationship. This 201 petition is stupid and I think they know that. On the 22nd, the commission will vote and a lot of bets are being placed on a 3-1 vote. This is really a 2-2 vote but since a tie prevails to the petition and only yes votes can vote on the remedy, a no will vote yes. That being said, a yes can flip and we could get a 3-1 vote against the injury. Let’s hope that the powers are pushing a yes to a no and we can put this thing into the past. Another speed bump on the solar coaster.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 14th, 2017
The Value of Electricity. We take it for granted until we don’t have it. Yesterday, a nursing home 15 minutes from my house had 8 elderly patients pass away from the 90 degree heat. Most of Florida lost its power on Sunday morning and power coming back on has been slow. It has been over a decade since we lost power due to a hurricane and the value for backup was obviously misunderstood because the nursing home should have had a generator to keep its residents safe. But I don’t have a generator either, in fact only one person on my street does. The reason is the value proposition has been near zero for a long time, now the value is at its peak again. The same is true for how we build our energy infrastructure. Why would a Florida utility use wood poles that snap in half during hurricanes? The cost of everything in energy is geared to be as low as possible because we fail to value what type of energy it is. Guaranteed, renewable, backup, all things that need to be valued going forward.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 13th, 2017
Living On A Peninsula. I spent the day yesterday driving for nearly 16 hours to get closer to my evacuated home. The benefits of living on a peninsula elude me at this moment and I think about how a disaster prone State with two highways out and limited infrastructure to bring food, water and gasoline to those trying to flee pending problems. On the highway we would see cars with 5 gallon tanks strapped to the roof because you’ll find exit upon exit with empty gas stations. Meanwhile the power is out for more than half of Florida including me. My power pole snapped in half which is strange considering I’ve been paying for storm hardening for a decade. Now the pole will get replaced again and consumers will likely be on the hook once again. Peninsula living…
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 12th, 2017
A More Diverse Solar Industry. The Solar Foundation has come out with the 2017 Diversity Study that still shows solar coming in short in comparison to the overall workforce but ahead from where we came from. I am wondering what has caused some of these statistics to become reality but will think about it some more before putting pen to paper. The comments about moving up the ladder are particularly interesting and the impact of the lack of longevity in our sector that I have seen over the years.
SPI Starts. Obviously I am not there, which was sad for the empty chair at the 11am panel yesterday. I hope it is fruitful and you get to meet all the right people. Focus on the relationships and not the immediate value that the business card yields because things move quickly in this industry. Think about how many different cards you’ve brought to SPI in your career.
The Peak Demand. The RPS is so 2007, except for the 100% RPS of course. The peak demand RPS will move the value of renewables to the peak of the customer’s demand. This will become known as the RPS for battery storage associated with renewables. Unless you are looking to wait for several years to develop renewables with a new interconnect and find offtakers, you need to add storage on your existing solar portfolio to shift your production peaks to meet this kind of requirement which will carry great value. Get used to me talking about dc coupling storage more often, I am infatuated with what solar with dc-storage will do to our industry.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 11th, 2017
Hurricane Irma. Not going to lie, the images I am getting sent to me are bad. Videos from Miami and Keys are absolutely terrifying and my neighborhood may be without power for several weeks. Power poles are snapped in half and we are far from a priority grid. I’ve been in Atlanta for a few days and will remain here until it is safe to head home. As you enjoy SPI, I hope you remember that our mission is to be successful financially but also that our industry’s success means that we change the way we generate energy so we can turn back the clocks on climate change. Anything short of shutting down coal plants tomorrow is a scientific and intellectual failure. The transition to a renewable future needs to be fast tracked because 2 storms have tormented the southeast, wild fires the west and Hurricane Jose has its eyes set on the northeast.
The Real Energy Storage Story. I was coming to SPI to speak with many of you about the work I have spent a lot of time on for the past several months and will continue to. Solar is a generating asset that creates energy that must go somewhere and why we need those upfront PPAs to finance the assets. Going forward, every solar asset will have storage attached to it even if not installed right away. This includes assets already operating. Storage needs to be installed as a DC coupled asset to make the solar asset more valuable. It is more complex and storage companies don’t understand how solar financing works. That is why I am spending time educating and developing these DC coupled energy storage projects because we must turn solar into a smarter generator. A lot more to come on this but if DC coupling is of interest to you, reach out.
Solar In A Trump Era. I was scheduled to speak this morning about how to communicate solar in this political era. With the tariff language going to Axios again, I would have expected much of our conversation to be about that. I was looking forward to sharing my ideas on how we become more of an industry that speaks to our customers and turning them into our advocates. We market too much to ourselves that we forget the hundred million plus Americans that support us. More stories about oil workers and coal miners that go to work in solar and less about the newest solar cell.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 8th, 2017
Contact My Agent. First, thank you to everyone for reaching out with your notes of encouragement and well wishes. Your offers of help and homes means a lot to me given that this newsletter is our only relationship in many instances. We are safely in Florida’s panhandle and hopefully after a few days here will be able to return home to a house that isn’t flooded and still standing. Now would be a great time for folks in California to contact me for offers to move out West. After 20 hours in the car, I have told my agent that a trade needs to be made because this isn’t something I want to do again.
Everyone Else Bring Data. SEIA is doing good work showing the trade commission that solar in the US creates local manufacturing jobs. Example after example shows that when solar is strong, innovation drives new investments to be made that create local jobs across the value chain and income range. In America, our money says “In God We Trust” but everyone else must bring data. Don’t tell me higher solar costs will create jobs, it didn’t and it won’t. Show me the jobs that grow when solar is a market based on competition and innovation.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 7th, 2017
Miami Out. Vegas Out. The storm has my house right in the middle of the path. At 400 miles wide, doesn’t matter which way it goes now and it will end up hitting my neighborhood. The family and I packed our car and headed north last night, first stop Atlanta. So no Vegas for me unfortunately and sadly will miss you all this time. The drive did give me time to question what climate change plays into our work. Over the past decade the amount of environmental conversation around my solar work has been reduced to a bullet point and maybe the ideological part of our work should make a comeback. Food for thought.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 6th, 2017
Hurricane Update. This is as bad as I have seen Hurricanes get. Irma is organized and powerful which makes me ponder evacuating my house with the family for the first time ever. Evacuation also means giving up on SPI which I am not ready to do quite yet. I’m hoping the storm turns before a decision has to be made.
What The TVA Could Have Been. The TVA is as close to a government utility as it gets. With a board nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, board members could and should leverage the reach of TVA to show what a 21stcentury utility looks like. Obviously the Tennessee Valley has a deep focus on fossil fuels but it had solar hopes in the past which drove some of the early North Carolina projects almost a decade ago.
Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant. Maybe the original quote was meant for government transparency but it is time that solar takes its place as the jobs Americans would most like to have. Out of work coal miner? Former gang member looking to change his ways? Lawyer tired of working long hours inside an office? These are all examples of people working in our industry that are finding a skill that leads to a career. There are still millions, a majority of Americans, that don’t have or understand solar and how it can be installed on their homes.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 5th, 2017
SPI or Bust. Busting My SPI Plans? Today’s top story could be a problem for all of us. If Hurricane Irma stays in the forecast cone, my travel plans to Las Vegas may be canceled which (I know) would be a big disappointment to all of you. Hurricanes a major PIA because they require days of preparation and labor. With 3 kids the whole thing is just made worse because electricity and water often go down for days or weeks if the storm hits your area. I’m hoping a change in direction but will keep you informed in case I need someone to take my room at the Mandalay Bay off my hands so the deposit is not lost.
Ratebasing Solar, A Solar Advocate’s Conundrum. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit given the change in Florida where the utilities have taken their solar investments to a new level. I want more solar, much like all of us but have come to the conclusion that ratebased solar is not good for our industry. I base this decision on lack of price discovery and competition for the benefit of the ratepayer, the fact that the utilities don’t fully monetize the tax credit and MACRS, charging consumers a premium over the capital markets for the asset and not allowing competition for the same opportunity. Overall, consumers aren’t getting a fair deal and we have seen what happens in a market that has strong PURPA type offtake agreements which is what the competitive markets in Florida need.
Reimaging The Electric Monopoly. The above point makes me and many other people think that we have to review what the electric monopoly should do for consumers. I’ve said it before but it needs to be said. Connecticut and Texas don’t agree on much but they do agree that the monopoly should be a transmission company first and a retailer of last resort second. It should not be a generator. The responsibility to serve, Florida is a peninsula; these are talking points that will be used to stop the discussion from happening. But having banks control the power markets is not good for consumers so this is a discussion we need to have.
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Yann