This is your SolarWakeup for March 7th, 2017

Limited commentary this week as I am traveling in Europe.
Gutting the EPA. What the Trump administration has proposed as a budget for the EPA is nothing short of terrible. Anyone that can stand by that kind of cut is a special kind of person.
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The Common Ground. I get it, solar and utilities want to get along. Utilities don’t like the bad PR and solar is having a problem affording the policy battles.
Storage in NYC. Let’s fix the solar on rooftops problem in LA first because solar on roofs in Manhattan is probably a bit crazy. On the other hand, storage in the basement of each building would do much good for peak demand cuts and helping when grid needs some demand response.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March 6th, 2017

Cheers from Qatar. Watch for more rhetoric about tough trade talk from the folks at SolarWorld, as their Qatari backers appreciate it.
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That’s not how it is supposed to work. Solar is cheaper than the grid, Georgia Power is trying to sour the marketing value of solar by charging a premium.
The Climate Caucus. I love the idea of this bi-partisan caucus to educate the GOP members in Congress about the effects of climate change. However, there should be a cost of entry for members. Sponsors a bill, a real bill, to actually do something about this. Right now you are seeing coastal members in swing districts use this for political cover, don’t let them get away with it.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March 3rd, 2017

Bannon vs. Tillerson. Who would have thought? The CEO of Exxon in the cabinet seemed like the worst thing ever (I still don’t condone or support it) but then the rest of the internal staff became public. Self described economic nationalist (i.e. I win if you lose), Stephen Bannon, hates the Paris Agreement and he is taking the argument to drop out to the Oval Office (SNL covered this a few weeks ago). Tillerson is on the other side of the table, as an engineer and the 41 year veteran of Exxon, I am glad to have that voice in our corner.
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Silevo your way to the door. Somewhat quietly, but not without anticipation, Silevo has been exited by Tesla. After missing several milestones, the investors will fail to receive further payments and Panasonic has taken control of the manufacturing plant. Toodles!
Yea, this happened. In the words of my favorite demi-god, Maui. Yes it's really me, Rick Perry, breathe it in. Enjoy this video, it’s a must watch resume for the Secretary of Energy.
Enjoy your weekend! Don’t forget to buy your IREC Impact @35 and Vote Solar Equinox Tickets

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March 2nd, 2017

That didn’t take long. Just yesterday I made the case for picking up our fight for solar policy. Later that day,  solar policy groups took a big loss in Arizona and are calling it a win. When it comes to policy or market dynamics, the test is whether or not the policy allows the market to grow going forward. If it fails the test, if it fails to allow more customers to exercise their choice to add solar, then the policy change is a loss. If, and I expect this to be the case, the solar industry saw no way to win any forward progress, a likely outcome in Arizona, and the deal on the table saved existing solar customers by grandfathering them for 20 years, then take the loss, give up and say the truth why you made the deal. The language outlining the deal was clearly agreed upon because all three press releases I saw had the same crappy language. It’s a loss folks, and that is unfortunate. We should fight with our greatest assets, our supporters by filling halls and streets with signs. Make it political. We lost against a company that is under grand jury investigation.
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 A bull distracted by bright red colors. The headlines are never ending in Washington DC and when you get large cuts to the State Department, most of us are ignoring whatever is happening to DOE or EPA. We call it moving the goal posts because once State dollars come back, you feel like you’ve won and the environmental and energy lobby has lost. Heritage and Koch brothers are laser focused on executing their plant to undo everything possible when it comes to our industry.
New headline, old news. Reuters has the news from a filing about the 20% cut to the workforce at SolarCity. I can only presume that some was due to slowdown in markets like Arizona and Nevada and some from redundancies in the merger. The company still has 12,000 employees which isn’t a small number. Read the article and I don’t see more than that, but I could be wrong.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March1st, 2017

Utility Math 101 by Duke Energy. PURPA contracts have been around for many decades, there was never an intention for them to create massive marketplaces for solar projects in places like North Carolina, Oregon, Idaho and more. Simply put, it makes utilities buy energy from power plants at the approved avoided cost. So when it comes to Duke Energy’s cry for help, saying consumers are overpaying for the contracts on solar projects, I wonder what they are really saying. Before solar, Duke never came forward to lower the avoided cost in the contract. Maybe Duke is saying that the rate was always too high and miscalculated for years but in reality they want to lower the value of the value so that less solar gets built. They have spent the last year blocking every application and is getting sued by developers. Watch for more PURPA attacks at FERC.
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 Don’t call it a comeback. Yet. NRG was early into the clean energy game when it comes to the IPPs and today they are far from the only one. You’ve seen several IPPs make the acquisitions and start business units to take advantage of the decentralized energy that gives consumers choice. Bridging this transition from producer to a consumer centric model takes time and some financial pain. It took the foresight and investments to create the path, and yes it took the firing of a CEO to shine the light on this venture. Looking at the progress from a financial perspective, it is fair to assume that the green energy vision outlined years ago will go forward.
If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for? Yes, solar is like telecom. It is the cutting of the cord from large, central, and top down approach to a consumer centered, decentralized power system. Most importantly it puts the choice in the hand of consumers instead of monopolies. There is much to lose and hence the fighting over this change is taken on by lobbyists and special interest groups. Until recently, the solar industry fought as if their lives depended on it, in many cases it did. With rumors of gutted policy teams, shrinking budgets and fear of being partisan, solar has taken a step back. In Indiana and Kentucky as well as other States, bills look to kill solar and it doesn’t look like much is happening to fight it. Where is the SEIA press release? Where are the national companies saving a market that doesn’t yet exist? We want to be the centered, well behaved children in a political battle. So in the words of Hamilton (the musical), if you stand for nothing, Solar Industry, what’ll you fall for?

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 28th, 2017

Who killed coal? Can we finally bury the lead on this story? Coal is dying and solar has very little and Obama has even less to do with it. The only way to bring coal back (and this is a stretch) is to ban natural gas. Clean Coal super project, Kemper, being built by Southern Company is not economical to operate unless you run it with…natural gas. Thomas Fanning, who gives his annual “I love solar” speech  at the BNEF Summit in NYC, told investors on an earnings call last week. Clean Coal is a myth, coal doesn’t work financially, and this may go into the history books as the project that buried the industry all together.
Help support independent media like 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 RPS is making a comeback. When we spoke to Senator Wiener of CA and Assemblyman Brooks two weeks ago on EnergyWakeup, we saw a trend. That RPS bills would make a comeback but I definitely didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. Minnesota is now looking at a 50% RPS bill. Let’s be honest about what this is and that is ratepayer protection. Legislators have done their math on energy costs and when it comes to keeping fuel cost subsidies out of the consumer’s electric bill, they know that renewables without fuel costs are the way to go.
Corporate PPAs for the win. The corporate RPS is also coming in fast but let’s give it some more time. The reason is that the corporate PPAs outside of virtual net metering and community solar States is a financial transaction in the form of electric contracts and hedges. Some corporations already do this but many don’t, especially smaller ones so it will take time for the industry to find the best way to do this. I prefer the PJM and ERCOT markets over regulatory rulemaking in community solar States. The reason is simple, I can’t control a utility regulator 10 years from now to keep the rules the same or to not change the value of the solar credit given to the offtaker.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 27th, 2017

A deadline for cleantech startups. Free Electrons is a new program that Danny Kennedy told us about on EnergyWakeup podcast last week. There is a deadline to apply on February 28^th for companies that work to disrupt the utility space. The program is a global endeavor with partners from the world’s largest utilities. These companies, as Danny Kennedy told us, understand the future lies in renewables and their business will be transformed. By getting ahead of the curve and working with these innovators, the utility executives know they are helping their shareholders.
Events you can’t miss. I can’t speak more highly of the two organizations I have been working with from my very first day in solar. Vote Solar and IREC were both there when I flew to Tallahassee in 2007 and together wrote the net metering policies that have created a solid baseline for our market here. The nuanced regulatory fights, grassroots activation, workforce education and public education costs money and does good for our industry we must support. Do this today please. BUY A TICKET to IREC’s Impact @35 and Vote Solar’s Equinox. Even if you don’t go, buy a ticket (preferable the most expensive one).
The Big F Deal. Couple of highlights from the big deal of the week. AES is buying sPower with AIMco, the Alberta pension fund. This is AIMco’s second endeavor into renewables after putting $500million with DE Shaw RE Fund. My first observation is that this is probably not the number one choice outcome for sPower. They likely preferred a private yieldco with the pension fund but it seems that the pension fund wanted a large sponsor to stay at the top of the ticket. AES is a decent partner, they have large exposure to the space already but they have also exited from large scale development platforms when they sold Silver Ridge to SunEdison. This also isn’t surprising, CohnReznick’s Conor McKenna teased this in our interview a few weeks ago that pension funds were looking hard.
The Pricing on sPower. Breaking down the pricing on this is hard because we only get top line numbers. 1.274GW for $853million in cash and assumption of $724million in project debt. Doing the numbers, assuming standard tax equity terms, you get to about $2/watt of project valuations. The pipeline could or could not be in these numbers but instead in an earnout to the current owner FirTree. At a high level it seems like a win for FirTree having deployed the capital, making some acquisitions and exiting the development platform. Maybe FirTree Principals will now go big into another segment of solar now.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 24th, 2017

Covering Innovation. Danny Kennedy has been in solar for a long time and hes been fighting for the clean energy economy for decades. Now he is leading CALCEF and deploying capital and grants to the best and brightest trying to change the world and our industries. We spoke to Danny in our latest EnergyWakeup about his funds and how the capital can get into entrepreneur’s hands. Next week is the deadline for a great program called Free Electrons (freeelectrons.co) which is funded in partnership with the World’s largest utilities. If you are in the utility space, get your application in ASAP.
Pot meet kettle. The economist got this one wrong, very wrong. While highlighting the huge growth of the renewable energy space it pointed out that the marginal value of most solar and wind is zero. The next electron doesn’t cost anything to produce. So instead, the article says the market needs to subsidize solar and wind to keep it profitable. That’s crazy talk. What the market will move to is proper price signaling. A more transparent market will lead to more choice and lower cost for consumers in all segments of the market.

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Yann

EnergyWakeup – Danny Kennedy From CALCEF On Cleantech Startup Investing and Innovating Utilities

This episode is sponsored by Conductive Capital, a distributed generation platform with tax efficient capital. In this episode we speak to Danny Kennedy, managing director of CALCEF (calcef.org) and President of CalCharge. Danny has gone from activist to entrepreneur and now investor, fighting for a clean energy future for many decades. CALCEF is the fund that is deploying early stage dollars into clean energy startups in a time when working with early stage companies could not be more important. We talk about the most pressing issues in the space and what kind of companies they are looking to fund. In a partnership, Danny is working with global utilities in a program called Free Electrons (freeelectrons.co) that are looking to fund capital for companies innovating in the electric utility space. The leaders in this fund understand the problems facing their business model and want to work with the next generation of companies to remain competitive. Don’t miss this episode filled with knowledge about startups, innovation and the market. Danny knows the market and shares his insights with you. Find the episode on SolarWakeup.com, iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher radio. Please subscribe and share with your friends how much EnergyWakeup is helping you! [soundcloud id='309210789' height='false']

This is your SolarWakeup for February 23rd, 2017

Electrify everything! I’ve been saying it for years and I’ll say it again. Solar needs to let utilities fight with the oil lobby and step out of the way. Once electric cars tick up the demand, solar will be there to fill the need.
Who pitched it? I hate this story with a passion. It was pitched by someone with an agenda enough with data to make the New York Times run with it. Last year, the same reporter ran a bad story about net metering in California and now this. The anti-Elon Musk lobby is real and here you see it in action.
SunEdison C&I is revived. Mitsui has acquired the team from SunEdison. Glad to see that happen and looking forward to see how those things progress.

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Have a great day!
Yann