This is your SolarWakeup for August 1st, 2016

Assume for the moment that over the next few years, that utilities and solar come together and negotiate something in the center. Something between full retail rate net metering and no net metering at all. You could foresee something along the lines of a minimum bill, time of use pricing and non-bypassable charges. NARUC, the association of regulatory commissioners, is writing a manual about good rate design. I’d be interested to see the lobbying and education that the solar sector is doing for this manual. Not because it will become ‘law’ but because things like this can be used as tool if the manual is particularly friendly to incumbents. What I am trying to say is that little things matter and the foreseeable future requires that we lead on crafting the tools going forward.

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Yann

These are the top 10 most read solar articles by your peers this week!

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 29th, 2016

How many times have legislators said that solar must compete on price. Not based on an RPS or carbon price or special carve outs. Now that solar costs have dropped 90% over 10 years and is doubling in market every year and a half, it’s normal for incumbent market participants to push back. Nuclear provides some important base load but let me be clear that power in open markets needs to be priced with market dynamic pricing. If the grid needs the baseload power that nuclear provides than the costs should reflect that. That pricing dynamic will undoubtedly cause more storage to be put in place because solar plus storage is renewable nuclear fusion bottled into a battery. The timing is right because in a few years, the storage sector would have policy staff that would make this exact case but that investment is not yet in the cards. So in the meantime, utilities will get what they can to keep the assets from being stranded.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 28th, 2016

Packed news day so make sure you keep up. To recap the story we talked about yesterday in the NY Times. I spoke with dozens of you about how this happened and while the article may have been strong in its wording the issue is based on the timeframe and the peak times are starting later in the afternoon. As solar companies pull back the policy fight and trade associations lack desire to get into the fight, these things will happen. More importantly policy and PR are related and it is VERY telling that no solar company was quoted in the story. Speaking of policy, look at the story about Nevada. The solar industry sometimes thinks we can negotiate from a position of pleasure in the middle. That fighting the fight isn’t ugly and getting rid of a single person can fix the issue. Well, you are wrong and now you have proof. NV Energy and the anti-solar commissioners are now attacking the other players in the fight to bring solar back to Nevada. Don’t get pitched by what people are selling without understanding their motive, that’s my message for reporters in solar today.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 27th, 2016

A few notes for you this morning. Hemlock, after winning a summary judgement over SolarWorld, has submitted the financial claims. The losses amount to over $793million which is far more than the cash on the balance sheet of the module manufacturer. The question is, will the brazen CEO fight more, ask for another bailout from Qatar or make a deal to drop the trade cases in US and China. This is a simplified version but a deal should be possible at this point. On another note, please take a moment to read and discuss the NY Times story. I don’t have all of the details yet, but I am fairly sure that the information listed in the story is either wrong or severely misleading. It may be possible that the homeowner was in a specific rate schedule from the start that was changed but the NEM 1.0 policies did not change in CA and the NEM 2.0 policies still offer a significant benefit to CA homeowners, especially in PG&E territory. Someone pitched this to NY Times and we should all be concerned about how they were able to push this story on a great reporter.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 26th, 2016

SunEdison is looking to offload its class B shares of Terraform Power. This may not be completely voluntary but due to significant holdings by Appaloosa and Brookfield of the stock. The question I have about this is more nuanced than just selling the shares. Keep in mind that SunEdison probably had to make some deals in order to create the yieldco in the first place. The class B shares had something to do with that including making sure the a knowledgeable asset manager was taking care of the projects. With new ownership trying to take that responsibility over, what leverage will the offtakers and other contractual counterparties have over the transfer which could be construed as a change of control requiring some consents.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 25th, 2016

Selling solar based on aesthetics? Elon Musk seems to think that the Silevo modules will give SolarCity a leg up on the competition. All things being equal, especially price, I am sure that aesthetics can play a role in the decisions made in the residential market. That being said, manufacturers like LG, Suniva and Sunpower make their claim to residential market share on efficiency as opposed to price so maybe aesthetics can play a role for a buyer that is deciding between multiple vendors. Musk is reaching out for a different aspect of consumers though. He wants to create something that people want, but they don’t know it yet. Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

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Yann

These are the top 10 most read solar articles by your peers this week!

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 22nd, 2016

Bill Gates is at it again. I love that he talks about energy but for some reason he is equating module technology innovation with the business model and cost innovation that our sector provides. Solar is not always the silver bullet but it often is the gateway to the tool that drives immense change. Gates spoke about energy in Africa recently and while praising ‘micro-solar’ he did not seem to find solar to be the solution to power the continent. To ask Africa to wait for some technology breakthrough is wrong in my opinion, the solutions based on todays technology can go a long way. Just take a look at Facebook’s solar airplane, designed to stay in the air for 3 months and provide internet to disconnected areas. Solar is providing the power that allows that connection to work.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 21st, 2016

Late last week, I received an email from SEIA asking what my message was for the group as they begin their search for the new President. I have heard from so many of you on your thoughts and I want to hear more. You can respond to this email or send an anonymous note on the website. Tell me what SEIA should be doing going forward. Be specific and pragmatic. SEIA has annual revenues of about $10million with a diverse membership base. Most of the board is through members that pay about $125,000 to be on the board with a few voted directors. This means that the quantity of members may not have the same impact as the financial size of the members that get on the board. With that in mind, what issue should SEIA advocate for? Is it a national only organization or does it get involved in States? How would SEIA and the new President decide where it stands on the issues? Can a consensus be built between the membership and how would that be done best?

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Yann