Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for July 2nd, 2020

More To Come. Come back tomorrow for more analysis of the solar news. Make sure to listen to my interview with Nick Chaset of the EBCE CCA as we talk about the Virtual Power Plant. Next week, we talk with Orison CEO, Eric Clifton about their upcoming launch and recent capital raise. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for July 1st, 2020

Reminder, Take ITC Action. SEIA is asking companies to sign-on to our letter urging Congress to support pro-solar policies. This comes after the House included ITC extension language in the GREEN Act which is likely to be negotiated in the next corona stimulus package, package #4. If the Senate decides to move on the language it is assumed that the bill’s cost of $1.5Trillion will be reduced which means things get cut out. Your action in the next 10 days will help make the case for solar.

The Dems Release Climate Playbook. 2 years ago the House named a select committee on climate change and the committee went to work without much fanfare. Now a 500 page report is being praised, you’ll have to read the report or reporting on the report to learn more about it.

But, If You Care. Whether you care about the ITC, tax code, land management, transmission lines, FERC rules, trade policies or DOE priorities that impact solar, only one candidate will care about solar come November. Time to put your money where your money comes from and support Clean Energy For Biden. If you want the ITC extended at existing rates donate $26 or if you want it to go back to 30% then donate $30. If you want solar to have a real impact in the White House, give the max $2,800. You can do all of that here, which gives credit to the SolarWakeup community and therefore pools our influence.

Early Retirement. Just like recent legislation allows for early withdrawal of certain retirement savings, it is time we allow and pursue early retirement of coal plants across the Country. None of them are financially, environmentally or socially viable. If you look at hourly output at any of the major service sectors you will see an energy portfolio that still needs a lot of work.

Florida Solar Growth. Florida released their annual solar interconnections this week. With more than 21k new systems and over 200MW of new addition, solar in Florida is real. The Sunshine State finally lives up to its name. Read the reports here. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for June 30th, 2020

Get Into ITC Game. Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee introduced the GREEN Act as a part of the $1.5 trillion House infrastructure package. The bill, which is expected to pass this week in the House, would push out deadlines for the Solar Investment Tax Credit and provide a direct payment option in lieu of the ITC. And now it’s time for you to take action. A strong grassroots push now can make a difference in solar’s ability to get pro-solar provisions added to bipartisan COVID-19 recovery legislation. Many of you operate in districts and states that are critical to our success, SEIA is asking companies to sign-on to our letter urging Congress to support pro-solar policies. In the spirit of bipartisanship, Representatives Paul Cook (R-CA) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) led a group of 25 Republicans and 25 Democrats on a letter Friday calling for pro-solar policies in future relief legislation. This bipartisan support is absolutely critical to our ability to get positive policies for solar included in recovery legislation.

Les Nelson Memorial. Please join NABCEP and CALSSA for a virtual memorial celebrating Les Nelson. As you know, Les played a pivotal role in the solar industry, volunteering his time and providing valuable guidance on many industry boards. On July 1st, please take a moment to remember him. Details are here.

Value Of Net Metering. It’s been sometime since we had a big and public fight on net metering. Over the years we’ve had value of solar studies and this one from Michigan shows once again that ratepayers benefit from their neighbors putting solar on their roof. The reality is that net metering is a benefit to all consumers and the solar industry is perfectly fine with the simplicity of one to one credit on the production. On the other hand, simplicity has always been the attribute that opponents of solar hate the most since it doesn’t confuse consumers. This may be a year that ‘net metering is a subsidy’ debate comes back, stay tuned. Careful to all my utility readers though, messing with net metering will only serve to expand and increase the adoption of storage, accelerating the loss of consumers to the rate base.

The Corporate Market. Yesterday there was a story about a 500MW buyer in Europe looking for assets and today Bank of America does a deal with NRG. Neither of these two things really gets me excited. What really needs to happen is 200 1MW customers getting together to do a deal. There should be so many off takers in the market that no developer has to ask “how will I get an offtaker for this project?”. Even better would be that the competition over projects drives the value of energy generation up in price instead of this never ending race to the bottom because the project must have someone on the other end of it.

A Favor. You know this year is hard on groups working on your behalf. CALSSA is trying to offset losses to revenue and we’re falling behind in the silent auction. Please help us raise another $10,000 by placing a bid right now. This is money well spent at your business. Furthermore, if you’re not a member, please join. If you are a member, please contact Carter at CALSSA to join the President’s circle. All of these business expenses are offset by your reduced travel and trade show budgets and our work at the Capitol hasn’t reduced.

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for June 29th, 2020

Clean Energy For Biden. You can now support Joe Biden’s campaign on behalf of the SolarWakeup community. I was involved in Cleantech For Obama and this marks another moment when the solar industry can get behind the former Vice President. Join me by donating here.

Grid Electrification. Much news was made this weekend when PG&E came out in support of electrifying new construction in California. This may be news in the literal sense but it’s not for climate reasons. Electrification is a monetization strategy for a bankrupt monopoly. The gas pipelines have been a giant liability for the utility and there is little additional rate base in that market. Electrifying, especially in dense geographies means more infrastructure that needs to be upgraded.

Actions Will Prove My Comment. If you listen to my interview with Nick Chaset, CEO of East Bay Community Energy, you will hear about the complicated relationship between the CCAs and the IOUs. Especially as it comes to the important local resource adequacy procurement, CCAs have lost their control on what projects get greenlit. With the new central procurement process, local storage, demand response and microgrids can’t get paid for local RA unless PG&E and SCE say yes. While you’re there, please rate and review the podcast. You can do this even if you don’t listen to it, as a favor to me.

Utilities And SPI. Not to belabor the point but since SPI is happening this year and is going to be down in revenue quite a bit, I will remind you that half of the profits from the show go to SEIA and the other half go to SEPA. SEPA, which doesn’t have the word solar in it, has launched SEPA TV. So if you want to know what SEPA stands for at this moment in time, you’ll get to hear executives from APS, NYPA, Xcel, Edison International, PSEG and PNM.

Debt Gets Fracked. Chesapeake Energy has filed for bankruptcy protection, to restructure $7billion in debt. By no means does this mean they’re going out of business, they just want to pay their bond holders less for the debt continuing the trend of losing money for shale investors. 

Just Because. Trump’s Twitter account had the word Solyndra in two separate tweets this weekend. I thought ‘scandals’ in the scale of millions was behind us at this point. Also, we can’t blame Obama for the Bush deal and the loan program was profitable. 

Opinion

Best, Yann