Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for June 15th, 2021

Infra Drama. The latest headline is the GOP mulling a bipartisan approval of the infrastructure bill in the $900billion range and assuming that the Democrats can’t get the moderates to pass anything else by reconciliation. Insiders tell me that the ITC is likely to remain as part of the core infrastructure bill even though many of the headlines about climate change policy speak to that portion getting pushed to the second bill. The climate change portion includes the national RPS which has garnered some negative feedback from Senator Manchin and others.

Lorde’s Solar Power. SolarEdge isn’t the only group that can make a solar song. If Lorde wants to get real about solar though, headlining CALSSA’s Battle of the Bands is the only place to do it.

Heat Wave Headlines. We’ve highlighted the impacts of heat waves over the past few months and we’re about to see the grid get put to the test and how assets respond. We’ve had a year of record DER and front of the meter energy storage additions, whether they are properly used and compensated will determine future build rates.

Paywalls. More publications are adding paywalls, which I don’t have a problem with. I will continue to post stories from those publications and leave it to you whether you become a subscriber or not. The alternative is to reduce the number of stories on the daily newsletter which would also have the negative effect of not driving your eyeballs to good reporting that you may want to support. 

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 14th, 2021

The G-7 Summit. Leaders from the G-7 met in the UK this weekend and climate was a central point. The big headlines came in around transportation and competing with China in supporting developing nations with infrastructure investments that align with climate goals. Australia’s presence in the room made any joint statement around coal difficult but as we talked about in the past, that ship has sailed. The group did make bold forecasts on fossil fuel cars, eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels and expanding foreign financing to match policies abroad.

A Note About Capital. The communique labeled the support to the tune of $100billion per year. That number is completely meaningless. What governments need to focus on is creating a bankable environment for the development of the projects that they are looking to be built. Allowing for streamlined zoning and permitting and access to revenue streams would create the path for the trillions of ESG capital, in all currencies, to get involved. Policies not headlines would rule the day here.

Markets React To Price Signals. National Grid wants FERC to do more for grid stability and I say that all the RTOs should figure out how to create a deeper market for the price signals that create a stable grid. Ancillary services are in the market but can lack trading volume that saw the frequency response market in PJM lose a build signal a few years ago. Part of the solution is creating a more dynamic market with shorter time spans potentially, allowing for trades to happen far more often that they do today.

Hot Price Signals. California is starting to see the warm weather and a message from the grid operator to expect shutoffs raised the price signal. A long summer ahead. 

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 11th, 2021

Have A Great Weekend. Keep your eyes on the news coming out of the bipartisan talks for the infrastructure bill. See you on Monday!

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 10th, 2021

First Solar Grows. First Solar announced that they are expanding their manufacturing plant in Ohio by 3.3GW. This will be the 3rd plant in Ohio and will start manufacturing in 2023. First Solar is doubling down on the domestic manufacturing advantage they have, in part due to the supply chain differentiation the company has. If only the Ohio legislators saw the ability to create local policies that would enable First Solar modules to gain a market within the surrounding areas of this job boom.

Oil Majors, Look Out. Last week came the results but this week the oil majors are pivoting into the PR push by investors and outside influencers. We’ve covered multiple times that I see the oil majors are looking at electricity as a transportation fuel replacement and will be getting into the generation, transmission, trading and retail sale. This marks the start of the future competition between utilities, IPPs and oil majors.

It’s Real. In case you wanted to know if storage markets were expanding, they are and they will continue to grow.

Soft Costs.   It’s shaping up to be a big summer for soft cost reduction with the launch of SolarAPP and with continued innovation from the leading solar software companies.  OpenSolar, today announced a partnership with the largest US design and engineering firm GreenLancer, connecting OpenSolar’s highly regarded 3D design and sales toolkit with the on-demand planset generation service reportedly used by over 5,000 contractors.  With OpenSolar bringing experience from its users in over 100 countries, Birchy and the new US team I know are focused on supporting US installers to drive down costs (Australia remember is at $1.10 per W residential cost all in, with 25% solar penetration).  They launched their ‘Opportunity Wide Open’ summer series today, in which they’ll share a range of resources and tips to help solar contractors reduce cost and scale.  There will be a lot of approaches but good to see partnerships in technology creating savings for the solar community.

 Opinion

Best, Yann