Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for November 11th, 2020

What Can Joe Do? In the past 4 years America learned a lot about what is and is not possible for the executive branch to do without congressional approval. The Supreme Court has heard several cases that made that box clearer including ability to designate a national emergency and issue executive orders. Whether Biden, a politician who favors tradition, gets his hands dirty in this path is to be determined.

Is Solar VC Hot? I think so, there are multiple investment opportunities that the informal SolarWakeup syndicate is looking at to participate in. We are also seeing traditional VC getting involved. A lot of this is because ‘passing the hat’ is possible within this readership that was not just a few years ago. Not everyone has the appetite to do angel investing but more and more of you are doing well and have strong conviction about where the market is going. No longer is the first slide in every deck, trying to sell the future of the solar market growth. Raising a couple million dollars in solar is now much more possible than ever before and when a market invests in itself, outsiders don’t want to be left behind.

Interested In A DC Job? Clean Energy 4 Biden is taking names of solar pros that are interested in learning more about working in DC. This is not directly affiliated with the administration but it could be a great way to make it know that you are interested in working for President Biden. You can enter your information on their intake form.

NextEra Wants More. In the past month NextEra has approach Duke for an acquisition and now has offered $15billion to Evergy the parent of Kanas City ower and Light and Westar Energy. Evergy has 5000 employees with and over $5billion in revenues while serving over 500,000 customers. This is a core geography for NextEra’s wind unit and may be a strategic initiative to be more aggressive than the oil companies who also have the cash to do this.

Let’s Talk DERs. Two of the Bay Area’s leaders in distributed resources, Nick Chaset, CEO of EBCE a CCA based on Oakland, and Cisco DeVries, CEO of OhmConnect, wrote what many of us are saying. California needs to get its act together with regard to distributed resources. At the end of the day consumer behavior and benefits will follow the pricing signals that the market sends. If DERs get recognized, watch out for major growth in storage for solar installations.

Buy Smarter. Solar products don’t get to installers in a straight line. It goes through layers, packaging, repackaging, unloading and reloading of containers to get to its final destination. Most of the time, installers pay more than double than the original cost to manufacturer because of those inefficiencies. Plus the pricing for products is not transparent which makes one installer pay more than the next. Take some of that inefficiency out of the process by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group, a membership organization that puts the purchasing power back in installers’ hands. Find out more at solarwakeup.com/pricing 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 10th, 2020

Interview with SEIA’s Abby Hopper. Tomorrow I host a Q&A with SEIA’s CEO Abby Hopper. You can participate by submitting your questions, the interview will be recorded and published here on Thursday. The time for politics is now and we all have to be on the same page with our talking points.

The Right Messaging. This is the line that the Biden administration should use. We’re not proposing radical solutions, in fact BP is right along with us. Of course the hope is to go much farther but the market has already decided that coal has transitioned to gas and gas is being dumped by industry. The same way that Trump couldn’t save coal, Biden can only accelerate what is already happening. And if he can make everyone believe that oil companies are on board, let’s go!

Holy MISO. The buzz around the SolarWakeup trading desk was that the interconnection queue for MISO is growing and 57GW is now the total active pipeline. Much like the studies announced in the Southwest Power Pool, where transmission studies just announced an $8.5billion price tag for infrastructure upgrades for the interconnection of 14GW of renewables. In reality we likely need as much of the 57GW as we can build and DC should think about how to leverage infrastructure week to make the smart grid work.

Would Disclosures Work? The UN Climate Envoy is backing a plan to make shareholders participate, review and/or vote on corporate climate plans during annual shareholder meetings. In an open market you would think that this is unnecessary as we’ve seen fund managers and investors argue for corporate ESG. If they are not content with the corporate goals and disclosures will they sell their investments? The envoy is arguing that regulated disclosure is required to ensure compliance with stated goals since they are filing to their truth not just opining on hopes on a call.

How To Charge It Up. GM announced hiring of 3,000 new employees to accelerate their EV rollout. We’ve already covered VW, Daimler and others doing similar things in order to catch up with Tesla. California set the benchmark of 100% new cars as EVs by 2035 already but didn’t talk at all about how to charge this additional load given it’s all going to charge in a distributed network. This could be Biden’s secret plan to supercharge solar, in a way to electrify the automotive sector of the coming decade.

I’m Excited. The most exciting part of the new administration for me is how many of you will be working in it. While we may not have enough grey hair in our readership to make one of your the climate czar (maybe) but we have all the intelligence and experience to staff up the climate office, office of legislative affairs and agencies around DC to make sure that solar, storage and DERs are well represented. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 9th, 2020

President-Elect Biden. Saturday morning’s crepe making was interrupted by a call by the networks that former Senator and Vice-President had earned the title of President-elect. It also means that California’s Senator Harris was now Vice President-elect Harris, the first woman elevated to the office. Congratulations to them, and many of you, for this achievement. Also a word to those of you that didn’t pick the Biden Harris ticket, some of you have explained to me your reasons, I hope that you will find this administration more receptive to your input than the Trump administration did before and you will give them a chance. As a father of three, including a 8 year old daughter, I was moved throughout the day as my daughters, who didn’t care much about Joe Biden becoming President, but repeatedly said Madam Vice President.

An Ambitious Agenda. As President-elect Biden laid out in his speech on Saturday night and throughout the campaign, climate change and renewable energy are at the top of the to-do list. Over the coming weeks, we will separate the issues and where they need to go in order for change to occur. Some will be able to be handled via executive order, some via agencies, administrations, or commissions while others require congressional action. Trade organizations, including SEIA, came out to congratulate the new administration. SEIA also included a robust 100 day plan that was ready to go, you can see that here. SolarWakeup will host a live Q&A with SEIA’s Abby Hopper to discuss the ideas and ways things could go.

Clean Energy’s Campaign Impact. In May, a group of clean energy professionals took to organizing Clean Energy 4 Biden. CE4B grew to over 11,000 grassroots activists and raised OVER $3.2million dollars and that doesn’t count the many additional money raised for congressional races. Never before, has the solar industry had a noticeable impact and built relationships with members as well as the administration to this extent. Biden’s senior advisors know who we are and what we did. Solar also held events with Senator-elect Mark Kelly and Senator Heinrich and a local event with congressman Crist.

But The McConnell Senate. This has been the headline that every doubter is using to say that the climate agenda is DOA. First, we won’t know the Senate makeup until early January when two Senate races in Georgia are decided. But let’s assume that McConnell keeps the gavel. Do not, I repeat do not, underestimate the value of Biden’s time in the Senate. But Obama you will say, McConnell will block everything. Obama was a junior Senator that used the seat to catapult himself to the White House, the first Senator to get elected to President since Nixon. Biden spent 39 years as a Senator, not only does he know (really know) the sitting Senators he also knows the staffers and lobbyists that make the system move. President-elect IS institutional memory and I’m not going to underestimate it. McConnell doesn’t have a mandate, at best we will see a 52-48 split, which is one better than currently since the tie goes to the Vice-President. Two things to remember to make you think with optimism, every solar victory started as an idea that most said is impossible and can’t be done (ask anyone that has been advocating in Arizona and Virginia) and McConnell brought a spending bill with ITC extension to Trump who rejected it.

Situational Awareness. McConnell has said that he is planning a COVID stimulus package for when the Senate returns to DC and there is an omnibus spending bill deadline of December 11th. It may end up as a continuing resolution but spending bills have been a great vehicle for solar. There are rumors of ITC negotiations occurring as we speak, more to come on that.

Duke Won’t Settle. Duke isn’t interested in settling with environmental groups for the coal ash disaster they caused. Let’s see if they find the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and EPA more appealing parties to negotiate with. Biden has said a climate czar is coming and with the EPA’s power to regulate emissions, as well as Harris’s history in fighting unjust pollution, I believe the enforcement actions of this administration to have the biggest, fastest impact on fighting climate change.

Other Tidbits. FERC’s chair lost his position as chair because he was ‘too friendly’ to renewables including supporting DERs. Europe’s reaction to the Biden win largely included climate change in the opening paragraph. South Florida is currently underwater with Hurricane Eta dumping rain for several days. Over the past few years rising oceans have made drainage slow dramatically which cause streets and homes to flood. I’ll post some pictures on my Twitter tomorrow. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for November 6th, 2020

No Call, But It’s Coming. Having stayed awake until the early morning hours, waiting for a call on some set of States to put Biden of 270, it looks like we’ll wait another day. That’s all it seems though, most likely both NV and PA will be called for Biden at some point today. Georgia and Arizona will go through some post election confirmations but America will most likely talk about what’s next. SolarWakeup will be part of that conversation and I welcome your thoughts. Next week we will talk about ITC, stimulus bills, Senate confirmations and more, but it will wait because I’d rather be late and right than a pundit that’s early and wrong.

Silicon Deals. Silicon supply chain could be an easy win for America if we restart domestic production. Looks like that could be happening earlier than I thought. 

Every Utility Is Pivotal. Duke wants to get credit for playing a pivotal role in clean energy, though they should play a supportive role. Being involved as the monopoly is natural, being the antagonist is natural for being an IOU.

Energy Transition Dealings. This could be a strange prediction but I think as electric utilities take market share from oil companies with the electrification of transportation, I anticipate oil companies to push their legislative engines towards competitive power markets and deregulate the utilities.

Or Acquire Them. Iberdrola is buying PNM in New Mexico, why that couldn’t be a strategy for oil majors?

Resi Installers Grow Profits. Installers that are members of the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group are saving over $1,000 per project through our novel method of leveraging higher volume to drive down prices for the installers. We’d love to talk to you and show you what you can save. SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group is a monthly membership program (like Costco) that gives you better pricing on the products you are using already.

Opinion

Best, Yann