Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for December 8th, 2020

Transparent Power Plant. OhmConnect has raised $100mm of which $80mm is going towards a virtual power plant. The capital is coming from the Alphabet backed Sidewalk Infrastructure fund. OhmConnect is known for its demand response platform, typically working off utility signals. Those signals cause Ohm to reduce participating homeowners’ demand by shutting off their AC/refrigerators/other loads with smart appliance connectors. How much opportunity is in this market? Shaping demand is one of the cornerstones of CAISO’s look into the future and how California can get to pure renewables because shaping supply isn’t always the most effective way of managing the grid. It’s easy to see how Ohm could deploy $10bb plus in the next few years to operate smart homes.

100% Is Feasible. Yesterday I wrote about Mary Nichols potential nomination to lead the EPA and today a draft report from the CPUC, CEC and CARB is released showing the technical feasibility of reaching 100% renewables by 2045. CARB is led by Mary Nichols who talked at the release about the transformation ahead for Californians. With reliability and grid resilience as the core concern, look above to Ohm’s platform and distributed solar with storage to be the central stabilizing tendon in the infrastructure.

The Climate Diplomats. Biden will enter his term having to play catchup on climate policy. While he will re-enter the Paris agreements, many of our global counterparts are already working towards or attempting to exceed the targets. Biden will also have a Senate and States that fight every step of his agenda to improve the quality of air and cleanliness of water across the Country.

Michigan Has Insights. Consumers Energy has a rate case that is the parting policy from their former CEO who has now moved to run California’s PG&E. Consumers had attempted to squash solar and is now pushing for more revenue in a rate case. How much of this DNA is transported to the San Francisco based utility is to be determined.

Supply Chains Choke Up. If you are a buyer of products, now is the time to expand your time horizons to ensure continuity of supply. Manufacturers and research companies are underestimating the size of the market over the next two quarters and likely most of 2021. That means that there will be a limited amount of product to go around and if you’re not allocated, you may get hung out to dry. SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group is here to help, ensuring allocations for our members now. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 7th, 2020

It’s A Big Week In DC. It was the corona stimulus and spending bills and now Trump’s attempt to kill section 230 has added the defense spending bill to the to-do list. Most of the work is being done in the Senate and with the NDAA addition, you could expect a continuing resolution instead of an omnibus. A lot will happen every day and the key for me that I’m watching for is any talk about tax extenders, which has been absent thus far (at least publicly).

The STEM SPAC. Stem, a decade removed from an old furniture showroom near SFO, is going public via a reverse merger. Crunchbase shows the company with 20 investors and having raised $371million through their series E. Press releases covering the SPAC announcement has the total value at $1.35billion for the company. In the early days, Stem installed 50kWh batteries at Walgreens as a method to avoid peak demand charges. More recently it appears that the company is more involved in demand aggregation relationships with power markets and utilities though that’s not entirely clear. We will get more public data on the company soon, a real-world check on what virtual power plants are worth.

Biden’s Climate Team. Nominations and staffing rumors are the highlight of a transition. Biden has previously announced former Secretary of State John Kerry as the presidential envoy and permanent member of the NSC for climate. This highlights how Biden will take on the issue in foreign policy and international relations. On the economic front, Biden named Brian Deese as to the National Economic Council putting a climate spin on economic policy. This leaves us with the EPA, Energy and the domestic climate coordinator. Axios has Senator Schumer pushing for Mary Nichols from California for the top of the EPA, we’ve been talking about this for several months and everyone reading this should be rooting for that to happen. Though Biden also picked Xavier Becerra (current CA AG) for HHS and cleaning out Newsom’s staff may be an issue. That leaves us with the domestic climate coordinator role, the floating executive that will ensure agencies are on the same page. Governor’s Granholm and Inslee have both been floated as well as Governor Cuomo’s lead on climate, Ali Zaidi. Granholm brings an interesting background to this, she used to brag about the solar manufacturing center her administration was building in Michigan back in 2007, something that could be used to keep on track with domestic manufacturing.

No Freaking Way. Georgia installed a solar roadway, better believe it. This may push the solar buttons all over again.

Still Essential. As parts of the Country go into lockdown including California, this is a reminder that solar installers are largely considered essential services. Your state chapter may have a memo, like this one from CALSSA, that helps your business stay in operation.

Worthy Of Considerations. Not enough time today but the new Moody’s carbon addition to bond ratings has the possibility of monetizing utilities’ efforts in renewables. Few things have the ability to change a utility CEO’s focus more than the corporate credit rating. The other thing to watch is Google’s efforts to reform RTOs. We’ve been tracking the desire by the tech giant to colocate and time-align their renewable energy purchasing with their own consumption.

Supply Chains Choke Up. If you are a buyer of products, now is the time to expand your time horizons to ensure continuity of supply. Manufacturers and research companies are underestimating the size of the market over the next two quarters and likely most of 2021. That means that there will be a limited amount of product to go around and if you’re not allocated, you may get hung out to dry. SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group is here to help, ensuring allocations for our members now. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 4th, 2020

Happy Friday. In some ways this week was the quiet before the storm, the storm being the last few weeks of 2020. Developers will rush to get to PTO, installers building out the homes for the promised 26% ITC and Congress needs to make sure the government has the money to operate heading into the holidays. I have enjoyed this week because the incoming President keeps talking about climate change and solar, something that I’ve never experienced in the past. Have a great weekend!

Solar For Clubs. My friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) have seen an uptick in interest for solar PPAs from schools, country clubs, and golf courses, as these off-takers have been impacted differently than other C&I energy consumers during the COVID-19 crisis. Golf & Country Clubs have seen increased revenue from golf and other outdoor activities, while schools would install solar while students aren’t on school grounds. In both scenarios, savings from a solar PPA are extremely attractive.Click here to learn more about how their subscription-free, proprietary software, the SCF suite, can help to speed up your PPA pricing and transaction process.

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for December 3rd, 2020

Solar Is Female. Nasdaq announced a progressive and common sense requirement this week requiring companies to include at least one woman and person of color on their boards. Axios’ report from yesterday shows that boards with women are more prone to innovate on climate. When it comes to solar, I still believe it to be a women’s economy even though many of our trade shows don’t look like it. Women make a majority if not an almost decisive majority of decisions when it comes to home purchasing including home improvement. Polling this year showed that women and parents were a big increase in the demand from the consumer side. Solar doesn’t do it enough and maybe COVID creates the opportunity for women in solar to do more of the sales to consumers and explain why we’re on the path to put solar on every home in America.

The Orange Badge. Sungevity has been the household name since the inception of the iPad. On an iPad 1 is where I saw the concept of Google earth driving residential solar builds for the first time. In many ways, Sungevity is as alive as ever, building tens of thousands of solar homes in Europe and more importantly the orange backdrop on LinkedIn profile pictures across the solar landscape. The company may be gone but the people that created and built that business power many solar teams across the industry today.

Oil’s New Power Grab. Two things that oil majors will absolutely be doing aside from investing every possible dollar into renewable energy projects. One, every gas station will add fast charging for EVs. With prime real estate that has always outperformed inside the store, EV charging is better because it takes longer. It’s confusing me an oil major hasn’t acquired Blink/evGo/Chargepoint yet. Two, oil majors will continue to acquire energy retail companies. Many already provide trading platforms for them to acquire the electricity for the consumer, the customer-facing funnel will prove invaluable going forward.

Solar For Clubs. My friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) have seen an uptick in interest for solar PPAs from schools, country clubs, and golf courses, as these off-takers have been impacted differently than other C&I energy consumers during the COVID-19 crisis. Golf & Country Clubs have seen increased revenue from golf and other outdoor activities, while schools would install solar while students aren’t on school grounds. In both scenarios, savings from a solar PPA are extremely attractive. Click here to learn more about how their subscription-free, proprietary software, the SCF suite, can help to speed up your PPA pricing and transaction process.

Opinion

Best, Yann