This is your SolarWakeup for September 22nd, 2015

Start your Tuesday with some inside baseball, definitely with some intended pun. There is some hometown drama in San Francisco between PG&E and Sunrun, with the Giants in the middle. The question is similar to that raised by Vice President Biden and is about the nature of incumbent participants. If you have extraordinary power awarded to you, it comes with great responsibility and in this case PG&E does not appear to be living up to the task. Should the Giants keep taking their money to allow them the publicity that comes with being a sponsor of a World Series caliber team?

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for September 21th, 2015

It has been widely publicized that the Chinese President is coming to Washington D.C.to meet with President Obama. The delegation is sure to discuss many topics and my presumption is that solar energy is one of them. The ITC is a benefit for the industry that almost directly offsets the cost of the trade tariff. The tariff artificially inflates the true cost of solar modules that could be used here. The politics here are inherently conservative and should be appealing to Republicans. Open trade can lower costs. Conserving energy through competitive markets lowers costs. So when the debate stage is in front of Reagan’s Air Force One, the question that should be asked is; Isn’t solar energy a great Republican Agenda item?

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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 September 18th, 2015

Another successful year for SPI, a huge crowd which hopefully won’t be the peak of the event as we go into an execution year. Acquiring developments across the Country is the focus for many of us but we have to keep looking ahead as well. Storage is now being looked at as having the potential cost declines similar to that of solar with the electrification of the transportation sector gaining momentum and scale driving up volumes. Enjoy your weekend and get some rest for your feet!

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for September 17th, 2015

Yesterday the Vice President addressed a packed room at SPI in Anaheim. He came with a preface to the sure fire refutes that would come hours later at the GOP debates. His best comments came when he directly spoke about the tax credits and how crazy it is that an industry like oil and gas still relies on tax credits but a thriving job creating industry like solar is asked to do without. In comparison, my US Senator Marco Rubio, is educating us all on how the United States is not a planet. Imagine if we were talking about another issue, Senator Rubio would be saying how the U.S. Is failing to be a global leader. Time to step up Senator!

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for September 16th, 2015

A cloudy first day of SPI 2015 today and I am not just talking about the weather. SEIA, through Rhone Resch, is rightfully pressing the panic button in its communication to the solar industry. There are some 200k solar professionals working in the space and if we had been proactive and actually calling our Senators, solar ITC could be much farther along. If you are a small contractor selling cash deals to residential and small commercial customers, solar without the ITC is painful for your business. Run a financial model without the ITC and tell me what it says, in the meantime you can pick up the phone and ask your Senators to help.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for September 15th, 2015

Money talks! That’s what you are getting across the Country as the companies interested in making sure solar doesn’t disrupt energy markets, especially their long time monopolies. Those money interests are right here in the solar industry and you are most likely helping fund anti-solar ITC efforts by attending SPI. A year ago, I asked if SPI will have to split up. The reason? The event is put on by SEIA and SEPA, and those interests are no longer aligned in growth of solar. SEPA’s members are mostly utilities and they have spurned SEIA’s request to push for an ITC extension. Don’t buy Julia Hamm’s response about tax status, it is very bad PR on her end. Let’s see how it plays out this year, but there is a rift and SEPA needs to step up and push for an ITC extension or pull out of SPI 2016 and perhaps choose to sponsor EEI’s annual conference.

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Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for September 14th, 2015

Planes across the Country are full of solar people flying to Anaheim for SPI (me included). On Friday, California showed again why the majority of total and annual solar growth is in their State. The legislature passed a 50% renewable energy by 2030 bill, clearly putting them into a leadership position on a macro level. Don’t let the details be missed, utilities want to gut the policies that will make solar a portion of the 50% which would put California behind South Carolina in comparison. So as you see the headlines, stay aware of what the other (incumbent and monopolistic) market participants want to do to 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 September 11th, 2015

Solar profits are a funny metric. Yesterday, Sunrun had its first earnings release post IPO and along with every other solar company, the street will hype about their losses and how it cannot be sustained. On the other hand, the company will be judged by how many MW it added to its balance sheet. So here’s the catch, how is a solar company supposed to add assets to its balance sheet and not pay for them? If the company doesn’t use equity to invest in the assets, they aren’t their assets and will sit on someone else’s balance sheet. I am oversimplifying the complexity of solar project finance but you catch my drift. Stop judging solar companies on EPS, instead look at their assets and the retained earnings those add to the company.

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Have a great day!
Yann