This is your SolarWakeup for August 31st, 2021
Ida Sends A Message. Hurricane Ida followed a path eerily similar to Hurricane Katrina and took on New Orleans the gulf coast of Louisiana including shutting down almost 100% of the oil and gas infrastructure in the State. One of the major infrastructure impacts is the destruction of a major transmission tower that has knocked out power to New Orleans and over 1 million customers. This is another knock at the attempt to return to SPI which was already facing a weary audience worried about COVID levels in the area. None of that may matter because it may just be necessary to give local resources the ability to focus on caring for those that are going to be without power for several weeks in heat and humidity without running water. As the solar industry is scheduled to be at the convention center in just 3 weeks, I wonder if that space may just be needed to care for the local community. With as caring as the solar industry is, I can see the organizers making a tough choice for the second year in a row and finding an alternative path forward that isn’t SPI in NOLA as much as we all really wanted it to happen. If you were planning on going and end up saving the travel resource, consider aiding some local charities that will emerge like the World Central Kitchen that is already on the ground and then plan on attending an upcoming solar conference to help the industry financially to make sure they have the resources to fight. Whether that’s an online event or a local conference, groups like CALSSA and SEIA are engaged on many fronts from licensing, net metering, trade and just plain political attacks by well funded incumbent actors.
Ocean’s Energy Storage. As a part time weatherman, like all Floridians, we pay attention to the barometric pressure of hurricanes. The lower the pressure, the more organized and strong the storm will be. Pair pressure with wind speeds and speed of travel, and you know whether you should get out of dodge. Hurricane Ida’s pressure dropped over 50mb down to 929mb in less than 24 hours. In context, Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew came in at 920 and 922 respectively so Ida was no walk in the park. These pressures have increasingly been below 950 and the reason may sit in the upper 700 meters of the ocean where scientists have been measuring the stored energy, in the form of heat (leave your physics corrections at the door), over the past 100 years. Warmer oceans means more stored energy for storms to feed off and also what has been driving storms farther north like last week’s storm that hit New York and Rhode Island.
Evacuating Lake Tahoe. Ski resort cameras are capturing the darkness of the Caldor fire running rampant in the Lake Tahoe valley causing evacuation orders. You would think that all of this climate change related destruction in California would be a kickstarter to ensure the most reliable and resilient grid brought to you by the solar industry but lookout for the attacks that are still coming our way, something is in the water these days that make my head spin.
What This All Means. The concept of designing an engineering solution to the weakest link is true for most problems but it’s central to the energy transition and the need for solutions that are driving the most resilient and intelligent grid possible. We have the tools available to us but the collective we need to act on them. Part of that is the resiliency of duplication and not having to rely on a single massive power plant on the end of a single giant transmission line. The reinforcement and duplication is the resiliency that enables the grid to withstand major attacks whether natural or otherwise.
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This is your SolarWakeup for August 30th, 2021
A Note To Adam. As many of you may have seen and read, Adam Browning is stepping down from his role as Executive Director at Vote Solar. Vote Solar was my first touchpoint into the world of solar policy in 2007 when the organization, as it had prior and many times after, fought for net metering and interconnection in Florida. The Sunshine State still benefits from their work in 07/08. Mind you, as I started to develop opinions about solar policy, I didn’t always agree with the organization and questioned why Vote Solar was fighting things like new natural gas plants in Michigan. I don’t think this is overstepping my relationship with Adam but one time Vote Solar agreed to a truce in Arizona where solar gained fairly little and I called Vote Solar out on it. Adam, the professional that he is, reached out and taught me an important lesson that he learned from his grandmother; “if you want ponies, go to the petting zoo.” The real world isn’t a straight line to everything you want and I still think of those ponies when I’m presented with a situation that I don’t love either result of. That’s the lesson I think about when I reflect on Adam’s 20 year leadership at Vote Solar. So thank you to Adam for your part of getting us to over 50% of the population with 100% clean energy targets and defending solar across the Country, you can be proud of the work you did and I can’t wait to see what’s next, somehow I doubt it involves a petting zoo!
The Senate Budget. The legislative bodies are working on the budget and we’re back to ‘all eyes on Synema and Manchin’ to see what they are going to do with the budget. They know that this will likely cause the bipartisan infrastructure bill to fold if the budget doesn’t satisfy the progressives in the House. Synema has said that she won’t support the $3.5trillion price tag and more will likely not support the pay fors and tax increases that some have proposed.
Look At Gas Prices. Natural gas prices are up over $4/mmBTU, blowing up every fuel cost projection in rate based natural gas power plants. So I remind you once again, rate based natural gas plants are the most subsidized power plants in the entire energy market today.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 27th, 2021
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This is your SolarWakeup for August 26th, 2021
What’s At Stake. If you missed the news yesterday, the team at FlexGen announced a $150 Million equity commitment from Apollo. This very well could be one of the largest private market equity commitments to an energy storage integration platform but it also signifies the importance of the energy transition. Adding more renewable energy and enhancing resiliency means building a grid that is reliable and intelligent. With this addition of capital, it allows FlexGen to accelerate our support of the energy markets from development through operations. The best in class integration and packaging services are matched with the leading software platform in the energy storage market today. In ClimateTech, like energy storage, it is the software that allows the hardware to operate to maximum efficiency and maximum profitability for asset owners.
A Personal Addition. Thank you all for the personal notes. Over the past 9 years, we’ve built a digital relationship that has become a part of my everyday life and I’m happy to be able to share these great events with you along the way. FlexGen is advantaged by our dialogue and if you share our vision and believe in the mission, we are hiring. Our team is looking for the best and brightest across the org chart, from engineers in systems, hardware and software but also in operations and business development.
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This is your SolarWakeup for August 24th, 2021
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This is your SolarWakeup for August 23rd, 2021
Setting Up Q4 Showdown. Pelosi came out yesterday saying that both infrastructure and budget reconciliation have a target date in the house for October 1st. There is a fine line of whether the bipartisan infrastructure bill can pass the House as progressives argue the lack of depth in those initiatives and want the budget bill to be a package deal.
Warmer Waters, Northern Storms. It’s not secret that many people from the northeast have moved to the sunny shores of South Florida in the past year, under the guise of covid protocols and lower taxes. The climate impact, which used to make you think that Miami folks would move away, is that storms are heading farther and farther north as they chase the warming waters and away from the Florida coast. It’s been awhile since South Florida get a good storm, knock on wood, and even then our infrastructure is built for it. An era of storm resilience will need to come to the northern States now that storms will become more frequent.
DERs Are Part Of Design. A few years ago the CEO of CAISO said we need to learn to not only shape supply but shape demand. The way we used to shape it is with demand response and consumer behavior, flex alerts. Now we have demand side generation and storage that can be called upon but once again we need to figure out how to signal that behavior to match the need to the speed of integration of these resources. You can’t remove consumer incentive to invest dollars into distributed solar and storage while also making them help the grid design free of charge.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 20th, 2021
Act Now For ITC. We have an unprecedented opportunity to enact bold federal policies that decarbonize our electric grid and help us prevent the worst effects of climate change. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to build an equitable clean energy economy, and we must mobilize support for pro solar policies in infrastructure and budget legislation. There is broad, bipartisan support for solar on both sides of the aisle. Even President Biden is calling for clean energy tax credit extensions, but this does not guarantee our success. If we want to meet President Biden’s ambitious goals, we need to quadruple the size of the solar industry today. We can’t do it on our current trajectory, and we need supportive policies that drive business certainty and help us focus on deployment. Please consider signing onto SEIA’s company letter and joining their effort this summer to help us mobilize support for solar policies in budget and infrastructure legislation. The future of our clean energy economy depends on it.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 19th, 2021
Act Now For ITC. We have an unprecedented opportunity to enact bold federal policies that decarbonize our electric grid and help us prevent the worst effects of climate change. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to build an equitable clean energy economy, and we must mobilize support for pro solar policies in infrastructure and budget legislation. There is broad, bipartisan support for solar on both sides of the aisle. Even President Biden is calling for clean energy tax credit extensions, but this does not guarantee our success. If we want to meet President Biden’s ambitious goals, we need to quadruple the size of the solar industry today. We can’t do it on our current trajectory, and we need supportive policies that drive business certainty and help us focus on deployment. Please consider signing onto SEIA’s company letter and joining their effort this summer to help us mobilize support for solar policies in budget and infrastructure legislation. The future of our clean energy economy depends on it.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for August 18th, 2021
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This is your SolarWakeup for August 17th, 2021
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