This is your SolarWakeup for April 22nd, 2016
The worst kept secret in solar and Wall Street was the imminent Chapter 11 filing by Sunedison. Trading at 1% of their stock price from a year ago, the fall looks like a culmination of bad management decisions. With $16billion of liabilities in the filing, it had nothing to do with the solar industry and everything with an inability to pay liabilities. I like the people at Sunedison and I was hoping that this would not happen. What bothered me the most about the messaging is that the blame is being put on the capital markets (see #4). Don’t blame an industry that is growing and going well for the failure, we never asked you to become a ‘supermajor’.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 21st, 2016
It is compromise week, in New York and DC. In New York the IOUs and solar developers negotiated a compromise around net metering. In this iteration, the policy looks like it will largely remain the same for a few years before going along with a formula that will create long term certainty for new solar installations. In the Senate, the energy bill passed. On a bullet point basis, it looks like a State by State wish list for certain easements and land use rights. It still needs to reconcile with the House which should happen over the next few months if there is appetite to get the deal done.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 20th, 2016
This week there was an energy conference hosted by Platts in Las Vegas. Apparently, according to Power Finance & Risk, some IPP execs went a bit negative on the subsidies thrown at renewables. They are obviously confused considering their fuels receive billions more in subsidies but I understand their frustration. The wholesale markets are changing and being an IPP means you depend on the ability to trade and monetize your energy in those markets. There are several things happening here to try and add more value to firm capacity to allow power plants to make more money. Maryland in some way attempted to do that but a judge has sided with FERC against the rule (story #2 today). Keep watching this space…
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 19th, 2016
Yesterday after the market closer, David Einhorn from Greenlight Capital sold around 11million of his Sunedison shares between $0.29 and $0.37 per share. Clearly not a winning trade for the hedge fund but better to get out now before a probable imminent bankruptcy filing. So when some in the media label Sunedison as taxpayer funded, make sure to tell them about the hedge funds, private equity funds and private capital that funded the corporation because I doubt that any of the tax equity is going to be at risk in the proceedings. It will be messy for sure but I doubt any taxpayer dollars will have been misappropriated in this case.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 18th, 2016
Subsidy, seems like an ugly word and policy that almost everyone dislikes. But given the political environment we live in and conditioning of society to think long term, I wonder if subsidy is no longer considered bad but good. Ask your neighbor if more should have solar, likely answer is yes. Ask them if Government should subsidize it, likely answer is yes. Paying extra for your societal goals and social values is part of our DNA and we should test that concept more often. Be on the lookout - Sunedison is finalizing their DIP (bankruptcy) financing and likely files for protection shortly thereafter. Here is their deck they submitted to SEC on Friday. Rhone Resch has left SEIA after 12 years as the CEO, I look forward to see what is next for Rhone!
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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 April 15th, 2016
Time for some Friday mash up. Vivint Solar held its first analyst call yesterday post Sunedison acquisition termination, looking to get investors back into the stock. Finnish oil giant Fortum is looking to buy Sunedison’s India assets and deploy some capital, and policy is always in play somewhere. One thing that makes the SolarWakeup community special is our communication. You can always send me an email or tips, even anonymously by going here. No need for a real email address if you want to pass along info confidentially. Everything is confidential.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 14th, 2016
What has lost investors over 95% of their investment in the last year and is hoping to get investors to double down in a losing bet? The company has lost money each of the last 4 years and has somewhere around $6billion of debt on its balance sheet. If you guessed Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU), then you are correct. The coal giant has filed for Chapter 11 in the hopes of getting lenders to swap for equity. The company will continue operations and sell coal into 25 Countries while the US keeps getting energy from coal for about 35% of the portfolio. Let’s hasten the change to solar/storage baseload with no emissions and fuel cost volatility in a distributed network.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 13th, 2016
Today’s top story about two utility execs (Crane and Fanning) debating the merits of regulated, central power utilities versus merchant IPPs moving towards distributed services seemed like it may have some spillover from an interesting commentary (albeit brief) at the BNEF summit. At BNEF, a National Grid exec, boasted about the company’s investment in HVDC transmission that will try to connect the wind markets to the eastern networks (which Nat Grid services). On the panel was also the CEO of Enel Green Power who was quick to comment that investing in transmission just as storage is picking up seems interesting timing. I’m not sure what happens in monopoly board rooms but thinking further than the next quarter doesn’t seem to be the most likely…
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for April 12th, 2016
Everyone that knows me, knows that patience isn’t my strong suit. Specifically when I am waiting for a shoe to drop that I expect to be coming but it is taking longer than it should. I am talking specifically about the ‘potential’ bankruptcy filing by Sunedison. I don’t view it as a bad thing, it will give the company the ability to work some things out and perhaps come out stronger on the other side. The problem now is that the waiting game is keeping a lot of folks on the sidelines wondering what is going on and that doesn’t help anyone. In the meantime, we shall continue pressing refresh on the SEC website to see what is going on. One thing is sure, today is the last day that I will be publishing the oped pieces on what the SUNE situation means for solar.
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Yann