Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for June 9th, 2021

Q1 Storage Grows. The acceleration in pipeline, backlog and construction within energy storage is real. With 2020 showing the signs of a grid looking for additional ancillary services and consumers adding behind the meter storage, 2021 continued to build on this with rapid expansion of generation+ and stand alone storage. The Texas winter storm in February showed the need for frequency regulation which is likely to be seen again this summer in western states suffering from record droughts.

Report On Solar Forecast. kWh Analytics and 12 contributors published the Solar Risk Assessment report which shows that the P99 estimates for production (P99 meaning that this should be accurate 99% of the time) are not often actually modeled accurately. The report also goes into detail about the degradation estimates for modules and the issues that are affecting the module quality.

Green Hydrogen Targets. Los Angeles and the Department of Energy made news with green hydrogen yesterday. After a decade of targeting record solar costs which were surpassed ahead of schedule, DOE is taking their talents to hydrogen. A note of history, my first solar module supplier was Uni-Solar, a division of Energy Conversion Devices and one of their science project divisions was solid state hydrogen fuel storage for the automotive sector and the corresponding fueling systems. Like many items at ECD, I don’t think this was every commercialized but a note of intersection for our readers.

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

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 8th, 2021

The Solar Market Update. Today at 11am Eastern, I join Phil Shen of Roth Capital (subscribe to his newsletter), for our monthly resi solar market update. We’ll be talking about supply chain, financing, policy and of course, storage. You can register at this link.

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 7th, 2021

The Drought And Effect. The west is dry and while we all hope for the best, there are already worrisome signs of wildfires and lack of water for agriculture. The energy effect will be more power shutoffs than before and a grid that consumers will consider unreliable. Grid planners have not adjusted any major items to ensure new infrastructure is built out but if I were still living in California, I’d be making sure my solar and battery were ready for primetime.

Low Capacity Bailouts. Expect to see more bailout legislation coming out after the low capacity clearing price in PJM. Nuclear operators will be legislating towards ZREC policies that provide a kicker for their plants but always opens up opportunities to get a broader energy package passed.

SolarAPP+ Thanks. It has been a village to get SolarAPP+ to where it is today and there are many people that are integral to this process and without ignoring everyone’s efforts I want to call out one particular person. Andrew Birch, a co-founder of Sungevity and current co-founder of OpenSolar, first pitched me the idea of instant/uniform permit policy over 3 years ago on his patio in Alameda. He’s been tenaciously cheerleading the effort and getting the biggest names and companies in the solar business to spend time, money and sweat on the effort. I told him then that it would be an uphill climb, and some of you emailed me when I first brought you the idea agreed that it was crazy to think this was possible. So for having the willpower to bring an idea to fruition against all odds without ever asking for credit, here’s a token of appreciation from me.

Will Manchin Deliver? Joe Manchin remains unpopular but very powerful and in some ways is taking the infrastructure bill on his shoulders to bring a bipartisan support of the bill to reality. We’re getting very close to seeing whether he can deliver the votes and give Biden the bipartisan win his 47 years of government would assume he could get.

The Solar Market Update. Tomorrow, I join Phil Shen of Roth Capital (subscribe to his newsletter), for our monthly resi solar market update. We’ll be talking about supply chain, financing, policy and of course, storage. You can register at this link. 

 Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 4th, 2021

New Spending, No Tax Increase. Biden and Senate republicans are going back and forth on the infrastructure bill which will be massively popular with voters. Biden looks to give in on tax hikes as long as republicans agree with $1trillion of new spending. Senate dems are putting up a 10-day shot clock before making their case for doing it by reconciliation. Solar advocates say that ITC extension looks solid but issues around labor and domestic content remain, though outcomes appear workable.

Climate Warning Signs. Two independent transactions with high-profile names are getting into climate event prediction and analytics. I guess knowing that your house will flood before it floods can be considered a valuable data point. This also marks TPG’s Rise Fund’s first major investment announced since former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson joined the fund as executive chairman.

AB 1139 Defeated. This was a bad bill doing bad things that are completely counter to the market and climate goals in California. Moreover, legislation that undermines existing market rules would create a new risk analysis in solar that would have impacted all parts of the ecosystem. Led by CALSSA and it’s 600+ members plus allies, advocates came out and maneuvered the opposition to victory.

Talk About Capital. I’ll ask this on a high level with a promise to talk more about it with you in the near future. Solar and wind investors look for stable returns on contracted cash flow with conservative assumptions for tail revenue post contact term. Energy storage can play a role for solar+ contracts but what capital pool will be an investor in the merchant storage assets and how will a stand alone storage ITC get a tax equity deal done? Same pool of capital but higher hurdle rates or different capital all together?

Enjoy your weekend!

 Opinion

Best, Yann