This is your SolarWakeup for May 9th, 2016

More changes coming to the busy residential solar sector. Last week SolarCity announced it was getting into grid services including some consulting practice segments. This could look similar to some of the moves that Edison International has made recently including personnel additions to the energy practice. The big move came from NRG, through NRG Home Solar and EVGo. NRG is getting out of the financing business and will be passing that off to Sunrun and Spruce while focusing on three northeastern States. EVGo was sold to Vision Ridge, which is led by Reuben Munger, the hedge fund manager and EV Company CEO that now has a few plays in the cleantech space. I hope to see you all in Phoenix for the solar summit. I will be having some live SolarWakeup sessions where you can help choose the stories.

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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 May 6th, 2016

Who’s going to join me in Scottsdale at GTM’s Solar Summit next week? A nice twist on the conference is the first day, a day spent discussing software in solar. Without a doubt, software plays and will grow its role in solar because we are just building so much of it. Add some storage? Participate in wholesale markets? Install two residential systems per day with the same crew? That’s going to take some efficiencies across our business platforms because we have to work faster and more accurate.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 5th, 2016

Solar in Latin America is largely highlighted by three Countries: Chile, Mexico and Brazil. Brazil and Mexico have used the auction mechanism to get price discovery, each receiving multiple times over the amount of projects the auction was open for. However, market dynamics have caused Brazil projects to be slow to take off and Mexico is yet to be seen. Mexico originally went with a remote PPA approach and has had limited capacity built on that before the program was sunset. If you are working on Mexico or Brazil, give me a shout. I want to learn more from you.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 4th, 2016

1 million solar installs! That’s a big deal but what is really the big deal is that the next million will happen in less than 2 years. Dubai is signing PPAs for sub $0.03/kWh and storage prices are dropping like silicon in 2010. Here’s the kicker, States like Florida contributed less than 1% of those solar projects while being one of the largest energy users in the Country. We have a long, long way to go and I really enjoy going through this growth with everyone of you. Take a moment, pat yourself on the back and go sell another project!

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 3rd, 2016

EEI (utility trade association) says “Vision without execution is just hallucination.” Let’s talk about their vision and execution because the execution shows that the vision seems to end at the next quarter. Over $100bb in grid investments per year and $90mm in EV fleet investments with a whopping 740 charging stations. That’s a 1000 to 1 ratio between betting against distributed generation and growing demand by competing with oil companies. So look at conglomerates like Berkshire that have fought distributed solar all over America including Washington, Utah, Iowa and Nevada. Let’s have a vision that helps consumers and doesn’t push ratebase up for the wrong reasons.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 2nd, 2016

There is a trend in the utility sector. While NRG is not a typical utility, more of an independent power producer, it does have to make decisions on what type of power plants to invest in. David Crane has an interview with Greentech Media that touches on a few topics but emphasizes one point. Solar is the future and that is where he wants to be. Jim Rogers, former Duke Energy CEO, made similar comments after leaving Duke following the Duke/Progress merger. The question is, how does the market allow the difficult internal transformation of utilities going solar?

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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 April 29th, 2016

Let’s talk about headlines that release information that you didn’t even realize existed. Public companies have to release information to shareholders that affect the business. Sometimes PR professionals (some are very very skilled at this, trust me) bury the story in the lead and you don’t even realize it. The ITC extension for example had some serious effects on our sector because many companies never expected it to happen, surely not much more than commence construction. I was much more bullish but the corporate world wrote that off. Once the ITC was extended, companies had to reassess their 1 year plan and revise to a 7 year plan. This caused shifts that have effects, read the headlines more closely and I will point some out for you.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 28th, 2016

You’ve heard the saying, “All politics is local.” The Solar Foundation with the help of several entities including DOE’s SunShot Initiative launched SolSmart yesterday. SolSmart is about placing advocates for short term roles to advocate positive solar policies. Whether some codes or ordinances need to be adjusted or permitting sorted out, Advisors will be working to lower the soft cost barriers in their own backyard. I can’t think of a better way for excited solar advocates to advise their community leaders on how they can improve. Of course they will be doing this with a great support network behind them. Another great initiative by Solar Foundation and SunShot, two great organizations.

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Yann