Does The House Pass It? The resentment for the lack of consideration in crafting the infrastructure bill is starting to show in the House. The noise that’s coming isn’t just from Pelosi but it seems like there could be real pushback from the democrats that they wouldn’t pass the bipartisan bill without the reconciliation also in tow, moreover that bill would have to do real work on climate change or risk being turned down as well.

Tesla Storage Sellout. Tesla is sold out well into 2022 and indication from Elon is that Megapack, their utility solution, is going to have create “significant unmet demand” going into 2023. Keep in mind that Tesla is not only using the battery cells for their megapack but also for a plan to build 20,000 powerwalls per week and of course their non-stationary power, their vehicles. You’d have to presume, and I say this with some knowledge, that the powerwall (resi solar/storage) market is going to be much more appealing for the company than the utility scale storage market which is filled with demanding infrastructure investors that want to carve up the contract and pick and choose the software solutions to align with their trading strategies.

CA Mixed Signals. California has some tall climate goals and challenges but when it comes to solving them with actual market policy, regulators seem more keen to be solving political issues than dealing with climate change. Aside from taking a strong view on net metering, their licensing board is voting to stop solar installers from installing behind the meter energy storage. Stay tuned for more updates from CALSSA on the topic and join the association if these issues impact your business.

Big Money On What? As private equity raises a seemingly endless pot of money for the energy transition and ESG investments, there are two apparent paths to deploy that capital. First is to invest into the infrastructure itself where the return expectation are directly tied to the risk associated with the project (contracted, credit and production exposure) and the second to the platforms that enable that capital to be deployed. It’s the latter that is very interesting to me because this used to be undervalued in the market, but as many of us know it’s the margin of the capital formation and the execution of those projects, i.e. the where the money is made.

• Utility Dive: California PUC unveils draft plan for ‘forward-thinking’ distributed energy policy
• Energy Storage News: Tesla deployed 1.3GWh of energy storage in Q2 2021 with ‘Megapacks sold out to 2023’
• Axios: Private equity giant TPG Capital raises $5.4 billion for new climate fund
• PV-Tech: California Community Choice Aggregators sign contracts for 778MW of renewables and 118.75MW of storage
• Politico: ‘Tiger of the House’ claws his way through infrastructure talks
• Solar Power World: Oregon officially commits to 100% clean electricity by 2040
• PV-Magazine: 250 MW solar project proposed in Wyoming

Opinion

• Canary Media: The solar power revolution can benefit working-class people and communities of color

Best, Yann

Financing EV Charging. Learn how to effectively model, finance and sell solar EV charging projects using SCF’s free software, the SCF Suite. On July 28th, at 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series, providing an in-depth breakdown of SCF’s new EV charging finance solution, how to use the SCF Suite to price projects and sell more EVC finance projects to C&I and non-profit customers. This webinar is recommended for solar developers and installers interested in increasing their range of offerings to include electric vehicle charging solutions, as well as combined solar+storage+EVC offerings. Click here to register for this exciting, free webinar.

• Energy Storage News: French grid operator’s ‘software-controlled battery experiment’ begins
• TechCrunch: Tesla’s solar and energy storage business rakes in $810M, finally exceeds cost of revenue
• Utility Dive: Nextera adds 1,840 MW renewables and storage to more than 15 GW backlog in Q2
• Electrek: The US’s largest solar farm is canceled because Nevada locals don’t want to look at it
• Axios: How extreme weather feeds inflation
• PV-Tech: Speed of US climate solutions must increase five-fold, says DOE director
• Canary Media: New transmission can prevent power outages during extreme weather — and save tons of money
• PV-Magazine: UK government launches competition to spur long-duration energy storage innovation

Opinion

• RMI: How the California Grid Can Become More Resilient to Wildfire

Best, Yann

The Full Package Value. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab confirms what we already knew and what makes sense. When solar and batteries are attached to a consumer’s demand, i.e. their home, it provides value to them and the grid. That means that your neighbor with solar and batteries is lowering your non-solar home electric bill. I’d insert a physics metaphor here but unfortunately that is not how utility policy works. Utility commissions hire for profit firms to do rate studies instead of government labs that don’t have a bias to solve for a predetermined outcome.

What To Watch For. As we mentioned here last week, Senator Portman is taking the lead on the infrastructure drama. Today, you can expect republicans in the senate to open up the bipartisan bill and let it pass. Pelosi has said she would not put the bipartisan bill on the floor in the House unless the reconciliation bill is also passed by the Senate, basically saying both or nothing. Republicans will see whether they delay the bipartisan bill to get it closer to the August recess or pass it and make their case to the American people that Pelosi is hurting the economy. I think Pelosi may have learned that public opinion on policy doesn’t matter in DC, so I’d bet on the former strategy of delay, delay, delay.

Bankability Means Leverage. If you want to do solar deals in Iraq, creating leverage by also being a major oil partner is probably the only way to create bankability. Not a major market point for us in the US, but the leverage negotiation tactic is a good takeaway for all of you.

Reliability Pricing. Is an uncapped frequency response market the way to price signal reliability? Let’s see how ERCOT views its future.

Big Dollars For Rivian. Trucks are supposed to be delivering to early orders this year but since Q1, communications from Rivian to customers has been slow. Another $2.5billion should help grease the proverbial skids.

A New Metal Battery. Since Mateo Jaramillo left Tesla to start Form Energy, it’s been a mystery what chemistry the company would use to solve their multi-day energy storage challenge. The company released the secret on Friday and Iron-Air is the answer.

Financing EV Charging. Learn how to effectively model, finance and sell solar EV charging projects using SCF’s free software, the SCF Suite. On July 28th, at 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series, providing an in-depth breakdown of SCF’s new EV charging finance solution, how to use the SCF Suite to price projects and sell more EVC finance projects to C&I and non-profit customers. This webinar is recommended for solar developers and installers interested in increasing their range of offerings to include electric vehicle charging solutions, as well as combined solar+storage+EVC offerings. Click here to register for this exciting, free webinar.

• PV-Magazine: Storage paired with solar shows steady growth, Berkeley Lab says
• Politico: Pelosi, Portman skirmish over bipartisan infrastructure timeline
• Energy Storage News: Long-duration storage mystery revealed – Form Energy discloses details of ‘multi-day battery’ tech
• NBC News: Solar farms promise to be Ohio’s energy cash crop
• Bloomberg: Iraq and France’s Total to Work on Gas Production, Solar Deals
• Utility Dive: Texas PUC, ERCOT pledge ‘reliability is first’ as state pursues market reform
• Axios: Rivian raises $2.5 billion ahead of electric truck launch
• PV-Tech: BayWa r.e. rebrands Enable Energy as BayWa r.e Power Solutions

Opinion

• Canary Media: Could digital circuit breakers make EV charging and home energy controls even smarter?

Best, Yann

Financing EV Charging. Learn how to effectively model, finance and sell solar EV charging projects using SCF’s free software, the SCF Suite. On July 28th, at 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series, providing an in-depth breakdown of SCF’s new EV charging finance solution, how to use the SCF Suite to price projects and sell more EVC finance projects to C&I and non-profit customers. This webinar is recommended for solar developers and installers interested in increasing their range of offerings to include electric vehicle charging solutions, as well as combined solar+storage+EVC offerings. Click here to register for this exciting, free webinar.

• Politico: Dems are ‘not particularly pleased’ with the Senate infrastructure deal. They’ll back it anyway.
• Solar Power World: Energy Storage Association to fold into American Clean Power Association
• Los Angeles Times: Newsletter – As the world burns, California will pick up the pace on climate — maybe
• Axios: U.S. Chamber of Commerce lays out clean energy standard plan
• PV-Tech: REC Silicon progressing towards 2023 Moses Lake restart as Biden policy agenda adds weight to business case
• Utility Dive: Avangrid touts green hydrogen proposals under DOE initiative, raises 2021 earnings outlook
• Reuters: Existing spending on climate change falls short – U.S. energy official
• RMI: Powering Rural Economic Development with Renewables
• PV-Magazine: FirstEnergy acknowledges wire fraud conspiracy, agrees to pay $230 million penalty

Opinion

• Canary Media: The clean energy economy has a diversity problem. Let’s change that as we build back

Best, Yann