This is your SolarWakeup for May 13th, 2021
More Tomorrow.
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 12th, 2021
It’s Another Lightning. Everything is about to change. With the release of the F-150 EV, especially if it looks like a traditional F-150, Ford will be changing the future of transportation. They should do the Explorer at the same time!
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 11th, 2021
Solar Spills, Revenues, And Oil Wells. You don’t have to listen to the entire Axios interview with Shell’s CEO but note this one line. “Asked when clean energy will be more than 50% of Shell's business, van Beurden said, "I think that will probably be somewhere in the next decade." Shell has one of the largest electricity trading books already (in the US) so electricity as a commodity isn’t new but you’ve also seen some solar pros leading Shell New Energies into several investments and the company also bought storage startup, Sonnen, several years ago. In a world where transportation is electrified, i.e. oil replaced by electrons, you have to ask yourself what the company fuels as the new oil well. While Shell sells 4x as much commodity as it produces, you can correlate that same multiple between trading and generation of electrons. In this decade, Shell’s new oil well is the solar/wind/storage asset that cleans up that solar spill Vote Solar has been warning us about for years.
Midwest Policy Job. Join Vote Solar as the Midwest Policy Director, apply here.
Come To Florida. (Everyone else is and the traffic is out of control) But the sun is shining on the solar industry! Florida SEIA is hosting a Solar and Storage Summit on June 3 in Orlando! There will be continuing education classes, an exposition hall, two tracks of panel discussions, a cornhole competition during happy hour, along with a keynote by Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. Pre-registration is required, and tickets are selling fast with less than 120 remaining! Register here.
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 10th, 2021
Role Of DG And NEM 3.0. We haven’t talked about it in some time but California is coming up to a legislative crossroads and grid operators may have one less tool to use in their grid planning. There is a bill working through the assembly that could possibly end net metering as we know it and change the rules for existing solar that has been installed. In solar we’ve become normalized by the process of being attacked and hearing the worst-case scenarios only to see the end result work for us. The problem with being numb to the process is that you never know when you may just take it for granted and lose. While it cost jobs in Nevada and Arizona when we lost those net metering battles, imagine the future of NEM 3.0 in California is lost to the incumbents. Not only does it destroy 40% of the market, but it also crushes the foundation of the entire solar market, investor confidence, and the opportunity to continue the energy transition.
Pipeline Cyberattack. A fuels pipeline company was attached by ransomware hackers and had to shut down their pipeline as a precaution. While the infrastructure itself was not impacted by the hack, it clearly identifies the risk of large concentration into that system. It also should create the question internally at your companies how your systems are maintained from a compliance and cybersecurity perspective.
What’s The Plan? The IEA is about to publish the report that outlines its view on how to get to 100% by 2050. Interestingly, the road will likely not only include generation but also the ability to expand and integrate more variable generation using more dynamic infrastructure on the grid-like smart transformers, storage, and HVDC. From an engineering perspective, you have to be excited about what a dynamic grid can do, with more elasticity than ever and generation on both ends of it. The entire planning exercise is made more complicated with the electrification of transportation, just think of the single variable of a school bus fleet needing to be charged at the same location at the same time, a couple of thousand times per day across the Country.
The Infra Bill. Congress is back in session this week. Don’t get distracted by some of the crazy sideshows that are happening or any of the commentary from individuals on either extreme side. This week, Biden is looking to play Let’s Make A Deal!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 7th, 2021
The Jobs Census. While the pandemic took some air out of the jobs market in the solar industry, our productivity increased a great deal. We’re now seeing the lack of workers in solar once again while seeing backlogs and pipelines expand across the market ecosystem. Without a doubt, pipeline of trained workers is a crucial piece of the pie.
Busy Week. Sorry for the lack of content this week, it’s been a busy week at FlexGen and I will be getting back to your regularly scheduled programming next week. Have a great weekend!
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Yann
This is your SolarWakeup for May 6th, 2021
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This is your SolarWakeup for May 5th, 2021
24 By 7 Procurement. Corporate renewable energy purchasing is headed to the next phase and it is going to impact ecosystems across the market. Corporates have reached their 100% renewable energy goal and now going to the time matching of procurement and usage. Google Cloud is announcing that they are partnering with AES to buy renewable energy matched to their usage. This is a little fish in a big ocean way to do it but here are two things that will happen next. Data centers will go first, not only those that are exclusive to big corporates, but data centers that are providing services to companies will have to match renewable energy to their consumption in order to retain their customer base. Second, renewable energy generators will have to learn to shape their curve. Imagine having to reengineer the 8760 forecast based on the consumption curve of the off taker. Careful though, missing your production could mean having to go to the market to make up the energy and leave you naked on the hedge.
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This is your SolarWakeup for May 4th, 2021
May The 4th. May the force of all the regulatory, policy and market tailwinds be with you. EPA is back to protecting the environment from greenhouse gases.
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This is your SolarWakeup for May 3rd, 2021
Capital Deep Dive. There are some important things to note in this deep dive by BNEF about the global capital to project pipeline. The energy transition, centered around the goals pledged to by economies around the world, is going to take north of $50 trillion (with a t) and even then will allow for the allocation of $2-3trillion per year. Their estimates have it at $2.1trillion this year alone. There are three items that I want to highlight and get you to think about. A few years ago, the CEO of an oil major said even if he wanted to invest $10billion into renewables, he wouldn’t find that scale in the market. That has changed and create the inverse problem. Large investors like majors and pension funds are going direct to the pipelines and not looking to trade those assets once they’re in the portfolio. The lack of trading is noted by BNEF and makes the value of platforms higher than ever before (and I note that the value of the platforms used to be less than zero just 5 years ago). Lastly, let’s realize the scale of the capital appetite and what it will take to credibly deploy it for long life assets. That means that not only do the investment platforms need to do the work well, the companies that are hired to build, procure, integrate and maintain those projects are vital to the ecosystem.
And Now You Know. The entire previous paragraph is why companies like FTC Solar are going public, Enphase, Shoals and Array are valued at 100x earnings with Nextracker and Loanpal filing their IPO docs.
ICYMI. I spoke about our role in helping develop the energy storage pipelines across the energy sector in this coverage.
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This is your SolarWakeup for April 30th, 2021
Does Storage Work? For your project. I had the pleasure of talking to Andy Colthorpe of Energy-Storage.news about the most common question I’ve been getting since joining FlexGen. Asset owners and developers alike are looking for answers on how storage creates revenue upside and capital deployment opportunities on their existing assets, pipeline and future developments. Regardless of the interconnect, storage has a role and a timeframe for the right return on investment. By doing a project feasibility assessment, you identify the target revenue situation and the corresponding capex maximum based on your return requirement with the ability to actually get the project done if the project gets the green light. Thank you to Andy for the article and Solar Builder and Solar Power World for their coverage as well.
The Congressional Address. Good coverage in a variety of publications about climate and how it made the primetime in Biden’s address to Congress. Politico’s Greenwald takes a contrarian view to the climate policy is jobs policy in today’s rundown.
Permits Cost Time Cost Money. It’s been 3 years since I first mentioned the idea of instant permits on this newsletter. While the concept has not changed much, permits take too long and cost too much for the service they provide to homeowners, the reality of instant permits has reached much higher probability and in some jurisdictions, reality. There are a few people, one in particular, that have been relentless advocates for SolarAPP. In due time they will get recognized in a major way on this platform, but everyone involved in residential solar should be paying close attention to how they can help this effort.
Power Up, EPCs. And come ready to learn! The Business PowerSeries from EagleView - moderated by yours truly - has an upcoming webinar on scalability. Remember what happened when Icarus flew too close to the sun? This session will show you how to avoid any sinking missteps and instead scale your business using sustainable strategies. I’ll be joined by JP Gerken, CEO of Zenernet and solar selling extraordinaire. He’ll talk about what it takes to turn a business into one of the largest residential solar companies in the country. Sign up now to save your spot for May 12th!
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Yann