This is your SolarWakeup for September 6th, 2016
“Global warming continues, due in part to human activity: 2015 was the warmest year on record, and 2016 will likely be warmer still. This is leading to ever more severe droughts, floods, fires and extreme weather events. Climate change is also contributing to the heart-rending refugee crisis. The world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact.” – Pope Francis on September 1st, 2016 You don’t have to be catholic to understand what the Pope is saying. Our economy has, over centuries, ignored the impacts of our growth on the planet and those that are not taking part of the developments. This isn’t a political or religious message, it’s one of conscience for all of us. My biggest hope, because I think it creates the biggest impact, is that environmentalism is embraced as a message throughout religious communities in America. There is a clear path to bipartisanship on cleaner air, cleaner water and clean energy.
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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 September 2nd, 2016
I’m happy to let you all know that baby #3 has arrived in the Brandt household. Don’t worry, your daily SolarWakeup will continue as I disconnect over the next few weeks but it also means that I will be missing the SPI get together in a few weeks. So I am counting on you to keep me in the loop on what is going on and who is doing what. Our work is important for all of us but more than anything our success means the world (pun intended) to our kids. So I thank you for doing your part, on behalf on #1, #2, and #3.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for September 1st, 2016
One of the best places to get the news is through SEC filings by public companies. In our top two stories today, you get the behind the scenes view on employee matters (Terraform) and how the sausage is made in mergers (SolarCity & Tesla). As the merging companies put the motions in place to schedule their special shareholder meetings to get the needed approvals for the acquisitions, they also disclose how the talks on the acquisition got started. Interestingly, SolarCity ran somewhat of a process to see if other investors would be interested in acquiring the company or entering into another agreement. It’s rare that such a process can stay quiet in our space to hats off to Lazard for that. On the other hand, someone at Lazard apparently made a $400million error in their model. The filing for the Tesla acquisition of SolarCity is here and the employee items at Terraform is here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 31st, 2016
The answer is yes! Floridians voted yesterday to fix an issue in the State constitution that will now exempt solar from commercial property taxes, this is in addition to the already existing residential property tax exemption. While commercial energy rates in the State are still low, as costs drop, the exemption should increase the amount of C&I solar that is built here. More importantly, this will exempt 3rd party owned solar in Florida from tangible property taxes and return north of 20% of potential revenues to third party owners. I don’t foresee a rush to solar by the residential companies because we have a credible issue on the ballot in November with a utility backed amendment that confuses voters into believing they are doing something good for solar. I look forward to seeing how this plays out, in the meantime IKEA in my County is going to get a pleasant tax break from their 1MW system. (NextEra also will save quite a bit of money on their 110MW solar farms they already have in place)
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 30th, 2016
The trend continues of having European utilities working to broaden their horizons and going solar. This time it is RWE, one of the largest utilities in Europe, buying Belectric Solar. Belectric had a US partnership with Smart Energy Capital before it was acquired by NextEra a few years ago but it also has a global platform. RWE and its main competitor, EON, announced last year that they would split the central generation from the consumer generation (read renewables) to let shareholders make their choices of business model to support. Innogy is that consumer centric unit for RWE and is the unit acquiring Belectric. EON already has partnerships and investments into Sungevity and Greensmith. They also announced the entry into Belgium with Sungevity yesterday.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 29th, 2016
Last week you were able to see what comes out of the solar industry. Through the United States of Solar podcast, solar pros are able to bring to life the current events in solar and show how it affects their work. On Friday, we published a fantastic interview with Julia Pyper which you have to make sure to listen to. The purpose of this podcast is to give you a channel to tell the rest of us your opinion on what is going on in your part of the industry. So if you have a story to tell, working on a great idea, or simply need to get your opinion on a current topic out, reach out by hitting reply or filling out the form online.
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Yann
These are the top 10 most read solar articles by your peers this week!
News
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.
Have a great day!
Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 26th, 2016
The Tesla acquisition of SolarCity was approved by the special committee on around August 1st. While the Federal Trade Commission has approved the deal for purposes of antitrust, there are still some other steps that I believe need to happen before the real deal gets consummated. First off, the special committee approved the deal including a 45 day ‘go-shop’ period which means that SolarCity should go to market and see if a better price was available to the shareholders. Which would put the final Tesla/SolarCity deal to the shareholders on or around September 15th assuming no better bid comes in. The real test is in the SEC approval of the deal, which may not have even started yet considering the ‘go-shop’ has not yet concluded. Also, the shareholders need to vote on the transaction. The SEC could be asking some questions, particularly because on the call to discuss the acquisition, Elon Musk said the reason for the acquisition was to clear conflicts in collaboration. More to come on the deal which I still believe to clear hurdles and get to the finish line.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 25th, 2016
Last week I told you about the new report from Nevada, this time with different results. Today you can read and hear all about rate design, in some cases with some utility driven cosmetic surgery. I like SEIA’s straight forward talk about the report, not only because I agree, but also because solar really does help all consumers. Tom Kimbis is showing what SEIA can be for our industry by speaking out for what is right. After all, solar doesn’t shift cost, it simply shifts the need for utilities to build more power plants which makes them less money. Net metering is simple and rate design is there for utilities to make solar savings calculations complicated. In today’s podcast you will hear how the solar industry is working to make it simpler for savings to be shown to consumers. Our industry is aligned on this. Complicated rate design is another attempt to stop the progress we have made.
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Yann