Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for August 18th, 2020

The Biden Era And Climate. The current state of energy is as volatile as ever. Oil, gas and coal is in steady state of decline both in production and new generation. Coal generation as a percentage of total is down big. This is going to cause a flywheel effect that leads us to the solution that is apparent to all, renewables, storage and demand response widespread adoption. Here are some thoughts on how the Biden White House would be able to take real action on day 1, borrowing some of the successes from the Trump time. Here we go.

A National Emergency. This is the obvious one, Biden will call climate change a national emergency. This executive action triggers access to powers for the branch including the movement of funds to protect Americans against climate change. Before you blast me for exercising the unilateral executive theory, read below. This power has been litigated to the Supreme Court which allowed Trump to move money from the military for a wall. As a prerequisite this will trigger several administrative options including a reverse MOPR or at least eliminating the DOE led bailouts of coal that the Trump admin attempted but only served to create market chaos.

The Rule Of Law. Kamala Harris was a San Francisco DA when she sued local polluters taking advantage of low income communities. Across the bay, a power plant powered by jet fuel just recently came down and will be replaced with a large battery for example. Once the national emergency is declared, the EPA will use emergency inspections to find generators, drillers, pipeline operators, coal ash ponds that are not complying with environmental laws that protect your water and air, especially for the less fortunate residents. Under Harris’s guidance in collaboration with the DOJ, government lawyers will take action for immediate compliance and temporary closures. (My expectation that most coal ash ponds will be found to not be in compliance for example) This national focus on compliance with clean air act or clean water act will drive the next step.

Let’s Settle For Speed. The first thing with litigation is that everyone including the plaintiff is looking for it to end as quickly as possible. The message will be clear, the government will see this through but wants to focus on compliance and a settlement is on the table. Much like Volkswagen is providing funds for electric vehicles across the Country, polluters will be setting up the 21st century version of superfund compliance funds. This will drive training, cleanup and replacement of generation not in compliance. Some of the best renewable energy policies were found in legislative, regulatory and legal settlements. My hope is we achieve the same thing but a scale that’s never been thought of before.

California As A Bellweather. California blackouts are not caused by solar, any decent reporter would get that answer from CAISO and utility executives (if they were honest). More importantly, the energy crisis would have been exponentially worse if there was no rooftop solar which offset gigawatts of need during peak times and is not accurately tracked by grid operators. So while SMUD wants to use kindergarten math to minimize rooftop solar’s value, what the grid needs is more solar on rooftops with more batteries installed by its side. Check out the CALSSA post on the topic.

Buyer’s Group Update. For the second week in a row the buyer’s group has doubled in size. This is a program for installers by leveraging the aggregate scale in volume which levels the playing field while returning margin to installers across the Country. Through transparent pricing that we are actively negotiating with supply chain, you can not only see the trend line but actually lower your COGS. Join today at solarwakeup.com/pricing

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for August 17th, 2020

Why This One Matters. Today, I’ll give you the headlines of the weekend and why this election matters. First the politics. I don’t think climate change should be a partisan item, I wish that Americans could be republicans and care about climate change policies even if the policies differ from democrats. Over the past decade we’ve seen a congress that refutes climate science, renewable energy, energy efficiency and free market competition in energy production/delivery. That’s why I’m involved with Clean Energy for Biden because you will see the news over the weekend make it unavoidable, you will see rare forms of natural disasters and even learn about new ones perhaps. So join me on Thursday for a CE4B event with Congressman/Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist. I’ll be talking with him on how to tackle this issue facing us all.

The Plan. Tomorrow I will outline how the Biden/Harris administration should focus on climate change in the first 100 days and what they can do right away.

First Time In 20 Years. 2 times in as many days, the California ISO called for a stage 3 emergency and rolling blackouts. Even when the ISO lifted the emergency, PG&E continued its blackouts without notifying critical infrastructure that led to sewage entering drinking supply. High temperatures and loss of 1,500MW of central generation led to grid instability causing the emergency. The sad part is that this is avoidable and the entire regulatory complex is at fault for being captured by the utilities. As I tweeted this weekend, it’s beyond comprehension how PG&E is exactly where it was before the bankruptcy and nothing has change. This is avoidable and doesn’t require anything to get started. CAISO could contract with every homeowner that has energy storage to create a massive virtual power plant. Utilities could expand the program with OhmConnect and add a gigawatt of demand response. The governor could call for rapid solar expansion and require instant permitting across the State for residential solar plus storage, it’s on his desk as we speak. The solutions are here, we need to unwrap ourselves from this obsession we have that only PG&E and SCE can solve this problem.

Flee To Florida? Hurricane Isaias is what Floridians would call an elongated thunderstorm, Key West would party through the storm in non-COVID times. Meanwhile the infrastructure in New York and New Jersey is showing its weakness once again when it comes to hurricanes. I’ve spoken to a dozen folks from NY/NJ/CT area in the past week and they all had extended power outages. I guess it’s time to flee to Florida for when hurricanes come around. Our concrete homes, power poles and generators (solar included) will keep you running.

It’s Called A Derecho. California outages, wild fires and hurricanes aren’t the worst natural disaster in America this week. Iowa experience a derecho, a 120mph land hurricane that arrives with almost no notice. Iowans are out of power, some counties lost 80% of power and crops are destroyed across the State. Iowa is the center of attention for politics every four years and unfortunately for Iowans, the media is already gone and is not covering this. 14 million acres of crops are damaged, this will end up being experienced by all Americans when shortages reach supply chain.

For The History Books. The ice sheet in Greenland is melted beyond the point of no return. Basically more water sits on top of the ice sheet than what could melt and therefore will result in the ice sheet losing mass continuously. Our kids will read about our actions about the elusive ice sheet that has caused measurable changes in the gravitational field in Greenland today. Instead our kids will live with the measurable increase in water levels caused by the melt.

Fire Tornadoes. For good measure, a firenado.

Data Nerds. My latest podcast on data in imagery with Tim Rochman from EagleView Technologies. Catch it on your podcast app and leave us a 5 star rating. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for August 14th, 2020

2020 Forecasting. Wood Mackenzie analysts are doubling down on their 2020 revised forecast, saying that cash deals will be down 41%, leases down 21% and loans down by 23%. This downturn would continue through 2021. Here’s the problem with that forecast. Every major public company is telling a different story, private solar installers are reporting months well above pre-COVID and loan companies said that May was the best month in history, June beat May and July beat June. Those data points don’t compute with a down year. While we were hoping for a 25% YoY growth year, 2020 will still be bigger than 2019. I invite the analysts to join our next residential market conference call scheduled for September 1st to hear some great data points.

The Loan Market. The side point of the research spotlight is the state of the loan market. Loans are rapidly increasing in overall financings and I’d like to hear your thoughts on solar loan companies. There is a diverse set of companies offering the product so reply to this email and tell me what makes you pick your loan partner. It’s not the transparent market but maybe SolarWakeup’s mission of shining the light could be helpful.

Utilities Play EV Infra. Ten years ago I told a major IOU CEO that I thought he should ask regulators for the approval to build 10,000 charging stations across their service territory. Maybe that was a bit early but I wanted the utility to front run the demand and removing the biggest hesitation factor for consumers, where do they charge. It would have also locked up the access for the sites and maybe one day EV charging companies end up buying the land rights from gas stations. Private companies now lead the EV charging network and I can’t wait to see how the compete, partner, or rate base discussion goes.

Coal To Storage Transition. Vistra, the IPP know for fossil generation, continues to diversify into battery generation. It already announced a massive storage site in Texas and previous two projects at the former Moss Landing coal plant. Now it received approvals for a 4 hour 1,500MW site near their natural gas plant, which it says it will build once the market data allows for it.

Solar Module Waste. Hard to believe that we are at the point where the market for re/upcycling of solar modules is upon us. For me it was always a problem for another day so educate me on options available or best practices on thoughts for what can be done. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for August 13th, 2020

SPI Goes All Virtual. SPI was pushing to have some portion of the market meet in person until just a few days ago, trying to convince exhibitors to keep their booth space and send folks. The lingering cases, positivity rate and hospitalization surround this pandemic made their best attempts fall short. Most of us were simply unwilling to get on a plane and visit Vegas. I know that many of us can use a few days in Vegas but it will not be. The lack of SPI creates a massive hole in the SEIA budget, nearly $10million of profits from the trade shows goes into the SEIA annual budget to fund solar advocacy and there isn’t a way to make that up. Thus far, PPP funding is not allowed to flow to trade associations.

The Digital OS. Like most of you, SPI will also go virtual. We are nearly 6 months into the pandemic so it’s a good time to look at your digital pivot. What changes did you make, processes adapted in order to meet the new normal? We can now imagine and realize a touchless customer journey except for the ineptitude that most building departments have shown in using email and FaceTime to do their jobs. Some AHJs have simply delayed their processes further hindering economic recovery. Take an hour this week and meet with your leadership team to asses the digital systems you put in place, happy to write more about this if questions arise.

Through, Not Past. Moments ago I had a realization about 2020 and the pandemic. Since the start we’ve been talking about it as a temporary issue facing society and the solar market. It would come and then cases would drop enough for things to go back to normal. Instead we now realize that we are living alongside the virus through 2020 and potentially longer. Our work will adapt to it as well, every company is making masks at this point, I’ve been creating a collection of solar masks at my home with East Bay Community Energy and Utility API coming in early.

SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. Your competition is joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group, transparent pricing powered by the market. The market is maturing and this is a big part. 

Opinion

Best, Yann