Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for September 1st, 2023

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for August 31st, 2023

It’s Open, All The Time. Last week, FlexGen officially opened its 24.7 remote operations center servicing energy storage asset owners for monitoring, reporting and performance analytics of those sites. This world class facility was purpose built for energy storage operations and one of the most exciting projects in my career. This comes in line with new product launches as the technology teams have shown innovation in ways that we weren’t expecting for years to come. Storage is driving grid reliance on the asset class faster than expected, meaning operators are having to keep up with new specifications and regulations, demanding more from batteries and the operating systems that keep them running. At the same time, revenues from batteries create a particularly important relationship between asset owners and the operations center. Over the past few months, I’ve learned that many systems are not actively monitored, reliably monitored and little to no analytics is performed on the data, and those systems deserve more.

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for August 30th, 2023

Project Sunroof Monetizes. Google announced that it will be offering an API for rooftop solar data which has the projection of creating $100million in annual revenues in year 1. The data is said to include access to 350million properties and introduce the overlay of 30 days of air quality history. Will this be a must have feature in proposal tools or will resi solar look at this as an unnecessary addition to the data set?

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for August 29th, 2023

Don’t Let Facts Get In The Way. Of a good story, or political talking point. Ever since the 2014 era ITC extension, solar has had to trade molecular fuels subsidies for its own extensions. Today, the US develops as much oil and gas as the global markets allow them to, with little to no say from the US federal government. In many ways, Riyadh determines how much oil is drilled in the US more so than DC but I digress. Politically, there is only one thing I really care about here which is something that I’ve complained about a lot, somewhat mitigated by the transferability of the tax credits but that’s the passive income rules that solar has to abide by that oil and gas does not. Democrat votes may complain about this leading up to 2024 but I expect the Biden administration to brag about the oil production ahead of the election while knowing that renewables are taking off with the IRA and EV impact on transportation is at its highest ever. 

But Let’s Drill. More geothermal that is, check out my friend’s startup at XGS energy for another major player getting into the space. 

Where’s The Invite? Secretary Granholm is heading to friends of solar in MN this week!

Opinion

Best, Yann