This is your SolarWakeup for October 20th, 2016
Yesterday I spent some time with Frank Andorka on the United States of Solar podcast that so many of you are listening to here on SolarWakeup. As a Florida resident and one of the few people that helped put our net metering policy in place, I find the underhanded behavior regarding Florida’s amendment 1 so abhorrent. The language is misleading and masquerades a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Today at 1pm, join me and many other leaders in solar to push #NoOn1 all over social media. After the audio tape leaked (listen here) that utilities are admitting to lying to Floridians about the intent of the ballot question, the momentum is with the solar industry so we have to work together to push #NoOn1. Please take a moment and spread that hashtag on your social media platform today. Right now. And of course, listen to my podcast!
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Yann
United States Of Solar: Let’s Stop Florida’s Amendment 1 with Yann Brandt
I join our host, Frank Andorka, to discuss the anti-solar amendment being pushed by the Florida utilities. On the heels of devastating reporting by the Miami Herald PROVING that Florida utilities cheated and manipulated the system to get the odious Amendment 1 on the ballot, USOS spoke with Yann Brandt, Conergy executive, editor of Solar Wakeup and a Florida resident himself. Brandt outlines where Amendment 1 came from, where it stands now and what work still has to be done to make sure this amendment is not enshrined in Florida’s Constitution.
Utility consultants Admit to Pushing Their Agenda in Leaked Audio Tape
Utility consultants have been caught admitting to what they call ‘political jiu-jitsu’ in order to pass a constitutional amendment in Florida. To quote from the tape, “To the degree that we can use a little bit of political jiu-jitsu and take what they’re kind of pinning us on and use it to our benefit either in policy, in legislation or in constitutional referendums — if that’s the direction you want to take — use the language of promoting solar, and kind of, kind of put in these protections for consumers that choose not to install rooftop.”
This is your SolarWakeup for October 19th, 2016
Solar still has quite some learning to do when it comes to playing insider baseball. I actually think that we have taken a few steps back in the past year in this regard as we feel the need to ‘grow up’. Solar has won a lot of battles over the past few years primarily because we have been fighting with politicians that care about their image. In Florida things are different. We are in the middle of a nasty ballot fight. The ballot amendment is an anti-solar amendment masqueraded as pro-solar which barely passed the approval of the Supreme Court. However, after $20million+++ spent by the utilities to potentially tie the hands of the regulators. Net metering could well end as we know it after some wrangling at the PSC. But here is the interesting story of the day. One of the participants in the hoodwinking of the public went on a panel and told the insider’s story. A case of political jiu-jitsu as he referred to it and giving the utilities exactly what they want. Learn more about the lessons from Amendment 1 in a special edition #SolarChat this Thursday at 1pm Eastern Time where I will be joined on a panel to discuss these issues and more.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for October 18th, 2016
A fact that I was unaware of and a victory lap for the Obama Administration with an exclamation point courtesy of the US Navy. In 2010, there wasn’t a single utility scale solar plant in the US. Utility scale is defined as over 100MW. In 2011, the loan guarantee program (yes, the Solyndra office) helped launch 5 projects with $4.6billion in loans. Keeping in mind that the loan guarantee program will end up bringing a profit to the taxpayers, today there are over 45 privately financed projects over 100MW and growing. The US Navy this week announced that it was buying through the output from the 150MW Mesquite 3 PV plant for 14 bases across California. Led by Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Dennis McGinn, who was the former President of ACORE.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for October 17th, 2016
An interesting study about the ‘duck curve’ in California is out over the weekend from consulting firm ScottMadden. The point that intrigued me was the impact on the duck curve came from utility scale solar and not distributed resources. The data that creates this conclusion is the difference between the system load and net load. The duck curve is clearly visible in the net load but the system load is far more in line with the total load. More analysis should be done on this but if there continue to be more reports to this effect, solar may have additional information to use during net metering debates.
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Yann
These are the top 10 most read solar articles by your peers this week!
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The Top 10 is ranked by the number of SolarWakeup.com readers that clicked on the news article during the previous week. It is the poll of the most relevant solar news of the week as judged by your colleagues and competitors.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for October 14th, 2016
I judge people by what they do, not what they say and I call it like it is. When companies were unfairly attacking net metering, I wasn’t worried about my advertisers, I let you know they were doing it. If SEIA wasn’t vocal enough about ITC, more than 10,000 of you signed a SolarPledge to push for a vocal and public support of the ITC extension. My point is, that right now SEIA is being asked to do more on net metering. So judge for yourself. The top story today is about unfair charges for solar customers in Illinois. Illinois isn’t a blockbuster solar State, yet, but here is the President of SEIA placing an OpEd in the State’s largest newspaper. If you want to make a difference, put yourself out there and make a difference. If you can’t find the action within you, get out of the way, we have gigawatts to deploy.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for October 13th, 2016
The vote for approval of the merger is set. SolarCity is going to the shareholders on November 17th and will ask to become part of Tesla. Tesla lays out the the acquisition, an all stock deal, where the SolarCity shareholders will end up owning 6.9% of the combined companies. Tesla asks the shareholders to vote FOR the acquisition. We shall see how that all works out in just a few weeks. Also look at the article today that talks about solar in Texas, and how it will affect the daytime generation values given that solar prices in the as available markets and always clears first. Cheap gas, wind power and solar will make the free markets in Texas fun to watch.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for October 12th, 2016
11 years ago, Vice President Gore gave the commencement address at my graduation and after a brief story about sitting at Shoney’s restaurant, Al Gore gave a speech about climate change. Keep in mind that in 2005, solar, wind and climate change were far from mainstream and surely not on this college graduate’s mind. 6 months later I found myself searching for a way into the solar industry and here I am 10 years later. The reason I bring this up is because yesterday, Secretary Clinton said what we have all been saying. Renewable energy and climate change are a central decision point in this election. In atypical fashion, Secretary Clinton was an opening speaker, as she welcomed VP Gore to the stage, in Miami, just a few miles from my home. This election has evolved to say the least but for me renewable energy is the main point I bring up to any undecided voter. So ask yourself the question posed by David Crane, “What are you doing for the next four weeks?”
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Yann