This is your SolarWakeup for April 24th, 2017

Solar Innovation. I’m a startup guy at heart. It’s where I get most excited and I am always actively seeking out the companies in solar that are executing on innovation. Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with the CEO of Energy Toolbase, a startup that many of you know well. John and I spoke about what it takes to start a business in solar and where his customers are guiding the innovation. (Hint: more detail on energy storage) Energy Toolbase is offering a free trial, make sure you tell them you heard about it on SolarWakeup, they may even extend the trial for you if you ask nicely.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
The solar spectrum. We already spoke about the acquisition of Sungevity last week. The owners are moving swiftly which makes it appear cautiously optimistic that a turnaround is being taken seriously. Sungevity is now Spectrum Solar, a new name and brand to wipe away the digital history. Unfortunately another 40 employees were let go, which happens in these situations. Once stabilized, I would assume the company to start hiring once again. This is likely a play to create a lead gen company, similar to the company that SolarCity acquired for over $100million a few years ago.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. Hear from solar entrepreneur, John Gurski, the founder of Energy Toolbase, a cloud based energy bill analytics and proposal tool. I also speak with Tony Clifford from Standard Solar about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA.
March for Science. On Saturday, Earth Day, an amazing turn around for facts happened across America. My favorite part of the marches were the signs. Scientists are clever people and some have a great sense of humor. I did have an important takeaway. Here I saw thousands of people in the rain cheering on the speakers that spoke about the birds, the weather, the climate all around us. The problem was, who in that crowd needed to be convinced to be there? Who was wondering if scientific facts were indeed facts. We, as a solar industry, need to speak to regular people. Stop preaching and make solar mainstream. Making solar mainstream isn’t a price point, number of homes or total capacity. Mainstream is the moment when people in a deli don’t wonder how the industry works, but that it does.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 21st, 2017

A deal for Florida. Last year, voters in Florida overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that reduced tax barriers for those that install solar. The Senate sponsor moved a clean bill while the House added industry oversight and consumer protection language to the bill. Some of the language was copied verbatim from Florida Power & Light. Now there is a deal that shows some of the issues Florida solar is dealing with. Vote Solar, SEIA and SACE have come out in favor of the deal but it seems that FlaSEIA is not happy. Somewhat protectionist, you can see some of the quotes from FlaSEIA President about overnight solar companies.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
No soup for you. As we imagined, ARPA-E and other innovation funding channels are being put on hold. More newsworthy is the delaying of funding allocations for projects that were already approved and put into the budget in FY16. ARPA-E and programs like SunShot do the work that private sector won’t and anyone that has received money from them will tell you that it is very tightly managed. I hope the Secretary Perry is able to come through with his statements to the SEIA board and do right by the industry.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. I speak with Tony Clifford about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
VC are you with me? I vividly remember Abe Yokell speaking at one of my first conferences in the 2008/2009 timeframe and the crazy notion that he wanted 10x returns on his money. Now he is out with a new fund, having raised $50million to pursue more cleantech. I applaud him for sticking to the industry with a bit of jealousy given that I would absolutely love to do the same. I speak with many of you about your ideas and visions for the market. While not all have the ability to get big, so many of them could be if they are nurtured and helped along their way. Solar will not have a photo app exit but it very well could yield the 10x returns that investors look for.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 20th, 2017

Solar guy and coal miner walk into a Kentucky bar. No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke. A coal mine operator is working with EDF Renewable Energy to develop two 50-100MW solar farms on old coal mines. This isn’t a new concept, I personally know of projects in the UK and Canada that have worked on this but do it in the US, in Kentucky, and you have yourself an interesting concept. Question for the readers, have any of your received investment from or sold a project to a coal company?
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
Policy for Storage. Ten years ago, IREC was leading the charge to explain net metering to regulators. Yesterday they released a guide for energy storage policy to do the same for the next iteration of our market. Storage needs to learn lessons from solar and short circuit (no pun intended) the learning curve. Too many of the mistakes made in solar appear to be done again but we can learn on the policy side because with storage, there are even more benefits for consumers that can be added to the benefits of net metering.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. I speak with Tony Clifford about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
An answer for Perry. A few months ago, I did some research on potential DOE Secretaries and came across the name of James Conaughton who was part of the Bush administration. At a conference Conaughton made the case to open up the energy markets in more geographies similar to the PJM RTO. While Perry is worried about grid supply, MISO ran an auction and the market supplied the needed energy and power and cleared the pricing in a competitive process. Give the markets a pricing signal and markets will answer. Perry should know better because ERCOT clears pricing for energy and capacity every single day.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 19th, 2017

A Nevada update. I spoke with Assembly Brooks yesterday to get an update on solar policy in Nevada. He is the sponsor of and in the middle of the 3 key bills that are in play. AB 206, AB 270 and AB 405. Here are the takeaways:
-          AB206 is an increase of the RPS to 50% as discussed on the podcast
-          AB270 is return of net metering establishing a rate formula, removing the cap and minimum bill
-          AB405 is related to consumer protections and solar bill of rights
-          The bills have been granted a waiver, which means they are released from certain deadlines. This takes coordination and support from the leaders of the Assembly and Senate. This is a positive.
-          AB270 (NEM) and AB405 are essentially tied together, it will likely mean both pass or fail
-          The Governor has not commented on the bill which is not uncommon for him but he has been vocal when he does not like a bill, which could mean that he will likely not veto the bill if it passes.
-          NV Energy has been lobbying against the bills and the Gaming and Resort Association has come out against it as well. GRA is more surprising given that the casinos have been vocal advocate to leave the IOU for more access to RE.
-          Assemblyman Brooks is optimistic that all three bills will pass
Taking podcast inventory. If you haven’t yet, I would ask for your feedback about the EnergyWakeup podcast. You can see all the episodes on this page which include interviews with Google about their procurement of renewable energy, getting the insight from legislators on pending changes to State rules and hearing from SEIA and affiliated State chapters. In the coming weeks you will hear from entrepreneurs working on software to lower solar soft costs and more State leaders. We’ve got requests out to some big names, so the more you listen, rate and review, the more helpful it is for us.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
Unfortunate news from Georgia. Suniva has filed for bankruptcy protection. The company was acquired by Shunfeng last year, which also owns Suntech. Module prices have plummeted recently, bids coming in at the low 30s which makes it very difficult for high efficiency modules that have to sell at a premium. Just look at Sunpower’s issues to see some of the similarities, except Suniva never entered the project business. I’m sure a turnaround is going to happen, let’s watch this space.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. I speak with Tony Clifford about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
Acquirer for Sungevity. Northern Pacific Group has received approval from the courts to acquire the Sungevity assets for $50million in addition to taking over the liabilities and assets. Expect the assets to be liquidated quickly to recapitalize the business. Good news for the company and the employees that received their unpaid wages. Making bad situations right is important, glad to see this going into the right direction. Now, does anyone know anything about Northern Pacific that would like to give me some background?

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 18th, 2017

Getting off the sideline. When I spoke with Tony Clifford I asked him why he thought Standard Solar was able to get acquired in a sea of available targets. He thought that being an active policy participant was a big part of it in addition to having happy customers. It can’t be understated that when a company has a senior executive spending a lot of time on policy work, they are making a time and financial investment on something intangible that also helps your competition. If you open a market, new companies come in and are able to take advantage. I hope that other companies look at Standard Solar and take a turn away from being quiet on policy to get vocal about taking positions. You have to listen to the podcast to see what else we discussed!
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
Solar has work to do. I read the interview in the Atlantic and felt the usual tensing up while I read silly stuff. GE ‘used’ to be in solar. The US only makes 3% of the world’s solar panels. Oil companies have long left solar. On and on and on. Maybe our industry needs to do more public relations work and speak to Americans and reporters. Maybe we need a full time communications person that speaks to editorial boards in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and kitchen tables across America to explain the solar industry. We have work to do. Don’t read the article with opposition to the messenger, he has faults, instead read the content with a renewed energy to evangelize.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. I speak with Tony Clifford about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
Scary stuff for IOUs. First it was the IPPs losing robust merchant markets. Now large corporations are taking the IOUs to task. Interestingly this isn’t about cost of energy, the longstanding focus has been on cost and reliability. Now the Fortune 100 are saying, we want more renewables and we want it faster. Whether it was Google pushing Duke in NC, Vegas casinos leaving NV Energy or Microsoft bypassing PSE; corporate America wants renewable energy for their operations. Next step they want it everywhere they use energy and soon they will want renewables to match their energy loads at all times. Hold on to your horses.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 17th, 2017

The point of policy. I spoke with Tony Clifford from Standard Solar. His company was one of the few that has been successfully sold to an international energy company. I was curious about Tony’s work at SEIA and MDVSEIA both of which he has been very active in. In an environment where the Energy department is going anti-renewables in their reports, according to a new memo from Secretary Perry, SEIA is on the defensive, as Tony put it. We also talk about the partnership with SEPA and how revenues from SPI are split. But you have to listen to the podcast to see what Tony had to say.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
Leaving Paris? Next week we may find out who is holding on to influence in the White House. Scott Pruitt told Fox News that the US should leave the Paris agreement. Global politics may come into play as well given that China may have some problem with us leaving after being reluctantly pushed into it by the Obama administration. Interesting times in politics when you want Exxon to use its political influence to help push for policy.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. I speak with Tony Clifford about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
What’s the deal with NYT? We have to do a better job explaining solar to mainstream America. We have over 200million supporters in the US and over 75% approval from either party. NY Times writes an editorial which leads with a broad negative recap of solar investing. If you read the entire article, it probably was meant for solar stocks, which have not done well as a whole. On the other hand, hundreds of billions have been deployed in project capital returning well above market returns to those investors. We, you and I, need to figure out how we can leverage the mass support we have. Being pro-solar should be more politically and editorially advantageous than being pro-fossil fuel.

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Yann

Tony Clifford from Standard Solar: Being acquired by Gaz Metro and working on SEIA

Tony Clifford has been with Standard Solar for over a decade, spending much of his time as the CEO until stepping aside late in 2016. This wasn’t his first time in solar, having worked for Solarex and BP Solar in the Carter/Reagan years. What are the parallels between the Carter/Reagan transition to those between Obama/Trump when it comes to solar? Standard Solar was recently acquired by Gaz Metro, a diversified energy company based in Montreal, which also owns Green Mountain Power. Tony and I discuss how the process played out and how Standard Solar was able to stand out amongst the many solar companies that went to market last year. Our discussion also goes into Tony’s work in policy. Since stepping down as CEO, he has been devoting much of his time on policy and business development. As an longtime elected member of the SEIA board, Tony was part of the search committee for the CEO job at SEIA that went to Abby Hopper. The next steps for Standard Solar look bright. With access to capital, including tax equity, Standard will be looking to acquire development projects throughout the Country. If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform including iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher radio. Please subscribe and share with your friends how much EnergyWakeup is helping you! [soundcloud id='317771965' height='false']

This is your SolarWakeup for April 14th, 2017

Strike Three in Juno Beach. I know it’s hard for many of you to say anything because Juno Beach is on your target customer list but NextEra is having a really bad year. First strike came when CEO, Jim Robo, wanted to buy HECO which was turned down by regulators and pushed back against by local. Two came when NextEra through its regulated utility, FPL, pushed an anti-solar amendment with millions of dollars. They went as far as using firefighters to lie about the amendment without their knowledge causing the ad to be pulled. Strike three comes yesterday when Texas regulators voted to reject the purchase of Oncor by NextEra. It seems to me that NextEra is suffering from an irreparable lack of trust with regulators. Management has shown that it is willing to do just about anything to get quarterly numbers to match. I’m surprised that shareholders haven’t asked why the continued failures are happening, after all Jim Robo is known for his lack of patience for failures.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
Get the PURPA out of here. Once there was a CEO at Duke, he loved coal and ratebase so much that when he retired he wanted to go back to his youth and become a solar entrepreneur. Now he sits on the board of SEPA. The culture at Duke has not changed at all, in many ways still living up to the normal way of doing business. Earlier this year, after extended pushback on solar applications for qualifying facilities, Duke made the case that solar contracts under PURPA should be much shorter, rendering them unfinanceable. Now, for the good of the consumer, Duke wants to spend $13billion, with a b, on new infrastructure. How about letting consumers put solar on their roofs and businesses; investors fund solar farms and generating revenues for North Carolina’s land owners? That way the infrastructure gets paid by the market or doesn’t need to get built at all.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup. We also speak with OSEIA Director about Oregon’s solarmarket.
The EPA. Don’t take your eyes off of this. The EPA is being absolutely gutted. Touting jobs from a coal mine, Scott Pruitt is ignoring the solar jobs to move forward the rules that help coal companies. There is much more here that is very disheartening and not what Trump voters wanted.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 13th, 2017

Lightning Round Thursday!
Saving Coal. The coal trade organization is running PR and wishing itself a new coal plant. Good luck with that.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
Get the $F out of here. Elon went all Silicon Valley on some investors. If you don’t like Tesla the way it is, go buy Ford.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup. We also speak with OSEIA Director about Oregon’s solarmarket.
More power. The resi solar + storage market. Will it be the negotiating tool that solar uses to help with NEM battles?

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 12th, 2017

What the PREPA. It could have been. It should have been. That’s what I think about the solar market in Puerto Rico. Plenty of C&I roof space and a willingness from the community to transition to clean solar energy. The utility, PREPA, was also a willing participant and started writing contracts for PPAs years ago. The problem came with the financial downturn of Puerto Rico itself. PREPA became an offtaker that could not be financed making most contracts stay on the sidelines, stranded and never built. In many ways, PREPA is like HECO on almost all comparisons except financial. Maybe it’s time for PREPA to go private.
Help support SolarWakeup. If you are looking for investors or buyers of your projects, hit reply to this email and let us help you. Our expansive network is always looking to partner with you and helps us pay the bills to keep the newsletter free to you, as it has been for the past 4 years.
A Colorado Settlement. I can’t say that I have been following the process in Colorado that closely. A State once at the top of the national leaderboard has been quiet for a few years. Not on the corporate standpoint as several big name firms have made its home in Colorado. The market has been soft for years as new companies try to get into community solar and muni deals. Let’s see if the happy middle solution creates new opportunities for the market going forward. We will try and get COSEIA’s Executive Director on the podcast to find out.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup. We also speak with OSEIA Director about Oregon’s solarmarket.
Please hold my solar energy. I’ve been a skeptic on this platform about storage in the past. I’ve been reading a lot of data in recent months and I think we are getting close to gametime. Storage is getting close to offering a value proposition to customers across rate schedules in various States. Moreover, I think the State level initiatives aren’t going to have to be so costly to make it work. I’m curious to hear what you think and where the market will be.

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Yann