This is your SolarWakeup for July 7th, 2015
Last year I was asked by many readers to post more global news. In finding some interesting sites that cover other markets such as the UK and Australia, I have become interested in those market dynamics. With my work also taking me abroad, I usually find that the conservative political party in other Countries is still solar friendly (not always). The strangest of all politicians is Prime Minister Abbott in Australia. The headlines that come from his office are usually interesting but the today’s sarcasm tops it. I am sure a scientist somewhere will make it clear that taking all fossils out of the ground is a very, very bad idea for the earth.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for July 6th, 2015
Today’s top story is about a man that lived off-grid using nothing but solar energy for nearly 118 hours. Not that impressive except for the fact that he flew an airplane from Japan to Hawaii for over 4400 miles. The irony comes that while Hawaii is a solar leader and looking to get to 100% renewables, HECO filed to revamp the net metering rules on the day that the plane lands showing what the future could look like. Old versus new, the status quo is changing.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for July 2nd, 2015
You’ve probably already heard all about it. Austin Energy went out for large scale solar and presented the results at an oversight hearing late last week. It’s worth a listen because it represents an interesting milestone in solar as some of the bids came in under $0.04/kWh. Many questions to be asked about the bids but Austin Energy calls them credible. Here is my fundamental takeaway. If $0.04/kWh works in Texas, where else does solar work or more importantly where doesn’t it? As you see utilities get more involved in solar, you can see why. The ‘solar is too expensive’ talking point is fading, quickly. Here is the presentation, around the 5 minute mark
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for July 1st, 2015
Bill Gates is making headlines again regarding renewables by looking to invest $2billion in new technologies through research and development. While the author of the article argues that we should invest in policy and not technology, I think another route would be more efficient. Bill Gates needs to invest in the deployment of technology that typical investors would not invest in. Moreover, Mr. Gates should invest in projects that are not investment grade to really make a difference. The cost of technology is the factor making the biggest impact today. A small solar panel connected to a lightbulb and cell phone charge do far more than some new revolutionary power plant in many areas around the world. I wrote about this last year here
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 30th, 2015
A full circle day for me. One of the very first days in solar, I made a deal with PVPowered to beta test a PVP30 inverter. I visited the PVPowered factory shortly thereafter in Bend, Oregon which was a small steel building, an office trailer and offices on the 2nd floor of a small building. The floor in the ‘factory’ had colored tape which was the result of optimization planning. I recall ordering a container of 30kW inverters in 2008 for about $0.50/watt. Fast forward past the acquisition by Advanced Energy, some really good people still represent the company. With inverters selling for $0.10/watt or so, it is sad to hear that Advanced Energy will be closing the division. My friends will surely land on their feet, I wish them all well.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 29th, 2015
Solar is a societal movement. If you doubt that, just take a look at the grassroots support that our industry gets every time we are challenged or attacked. On Friday, the Supreme Court moved an entire nation forward and it was amazing to see how corporate America responded, especially solar companies. For marketing and communication professionals it sometimes presents a dilemma of whether a company should comment on something outside of their industry. On Fridaysome of solar’s largest companies including Conergy, Sunedison, SunPower and NRG Home made social media comments. For a particularly proud moment for my amazing team, we got a shoutout from CNN for our post.
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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 June 26th, 2015
With huge news out of solar yesterday, Sunrun announced it was going public with the release of the S-1 filing to the SEC. It had been filed privately as allowed by the JOBS Act, but now it is happening. The things you need to know: Sunrun is listing under the ticker “RUN” on the NASDAQ, which is the same as SolarCity. There are probably over 80,000 systems on the books and 430MW. Most interesting tidbit, currently being missed by all other reports. Sunrun has an impressive cash income stream from system sales, over $100mm in 2014. So while SolarCity does 137MW in Q4 of 2014, the annual revenue was $255million whereas Sunrun had $198million for the same time period. Let’s see if investors notice…
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 25th, 2015
The first day at REFF had plenty of coverage of what happens in 2017. With a few folks commenting that it has yet to be determined and Bank of America coming out to say that the solar revolution will continue on without problem. What is apparent is that the people in the know and those with policy teams understand that the ability of solar ITC extension is very likely. Keep in the loop and let me know if you're connected to your congressman or Senator!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for June 24th, 2015
I'm here in NYC for the REFF conference. Solar plus storage will surely be a topic of discussion as brought up by the Washington Post today. I don't see storage being much different than solar, as we currently sit in the phase to drive price down. With Tesla leading the charge alongside Samsung to drive price down, the next step will be to grow pipeline and building the right software platforms. For our team, we look a your global pipeline and figure out how to add it. Solar plus storage will be a great market and we will see how the financing markets react.
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Yann