Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for June 28, 2021

A Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. Late last week, the bipartisan Senate group arrived to an agreement that had the support from President Biden. This agreement is largely for roads and bridges with a headline number approaching $1trillion or $600mm in new spending. Given what happened in my neighborhood, the Surfside tower collapsing and likely killing over 100, the need to improve infrastructure is a no-brainer. Biden advisors had to clean up a veiled veto threat over the weekend.

What’s Not In It. Solar and cleantech tax credit extensions and expansions are not expected to be in the legislative language. (They won’t be in this bill) The clean energy standard is also not included.

But Wait, There’s More (Maybe). Part of the dust up this weekend was Biden’s comment that he will pursue a second infrastructure bill for items that would not have bipartisan support via reconciliation, something that Manchin has already supported. The comments included a veiled threat that if the bill does not pass reconciliation, he would no longer support the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Of course that’s the truth and the reality of the politics but saying it out loud puts the republican Senators on notice and they have to pretend to be upset.

PR Win Anniversary. I’ve had the pleasure to be involved in telling and pitching many great stories in my career. Most of the time it comes as part of a pitch or relationship with a reported to tell a particular story. The coverage I am most proud of wasn’t pitched to a reporter, it was an action that was covered by reporters at CNN. June 26th is the day that the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality and it was a great day in America. On that day, I was the Global Head of Marketing and PR for Conergy and we posted a tweet in support that landed us on a list with Google, HBO and Gap.

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 25, 2021

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 24, 2021

News Of The Day. Bloomberg and Reuters are reporting that the US will start blocking polysilicon imports from the Xinjiang province and name specific companies. We’ll be following analysts’ coverage on the impacted companies and how this will affect the solar market. More to come…

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 23, 2021

Domestic Manufacturing. I got an interesting AMA question about domestic manufacturing, especially with the DC headlines this week about a tax credit for domestic factories.  It seems to me that the best thing going for domestic content, cells and modules, is based on supply chain hiccups and cost. I.e. if the local cost of manufacturing can make the product more readily available and absorb the cost of offshore logistics, then more manufacturing will happen here. The best analogy is US made car manufacturing, cheaper to make them here than to offshore the manufacturing and ship the cars.

A Domestic Premium? Can domestic modules, inverters and BOS get a premium for being made in America? I wish I could say yes, but every time I’ve tried to sell the value of domestically made solar products, primarily my experience in racking, the answer was a hard no.

How To Fix. Manufacturing is good work, it has predictable hours, training for new employees and consistent ability to promote from within. The pressure to justify domestic manufacturing is complicated sometimes and in an economy driven by promoting goals through the tax code, here’s my fix for domestic manufacturing of all types. Unlike traditional labor expenses that are deducted from revenue, allow for direct shift labor expense in manufacturing to be a 2x or 3x deduction. That means that a $25 per hour employee which has a $5 tax benefit, would deduct at $16 per hour. 

 Opinion

Best, Yann