Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for May 5th, 2020

Survey #6. Dare I say it? You all are slacking with the survey contributions. They went from weekly to bi-weekly. Here is an example of how the data gets used: two weeks in a row your contributions say that building departments are slowing their use of digital solutions and not getting you permits. Regulators, who read this newsletter, contact me to see who is doing a good job and I introduce folks that then deliver digital permitting. At the same time, people with access to legislators are retelling your aggregated story to push for legislative solutions. My point is that my opinion doesn’t get the job done, your voice needs to come out. Fill out the survey. 

Thursday’s Webinar. We have less than 20 seats left for the webinar on digital and virtual lead generation to sales solutions. If you are trying to understand what goes into having a digital operating system for your company and investing more into lead generation, join us on Thursday. You can register here

Resi Capital. The survey has yet to say that resi solar is having a capital issue for loans or leases and a new capital raise by Spruce seems to second that motion. Great to see

IRP Growth. Dominion adjusted their long term IRP which changes the game for their solar and storage projections. Early reporting doesn’t show what this means for their coal and gas forecast nor how this is impacted by COVID related changes in consumer behavior. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 4th, 2020

An Index Is Launched. We did a soft launch of the solar module index on Friday to the first 25 installers that contributed. Would it surprise you that the same module sells at a spread of 25% depending on who bought it? On average the delta was over 15% from high to low. For May, SolarWakeup is opening this up to all residential installers to participate. The hesitation of providing your information is understood, it is entirely confidential. In return you see what others are paying and arms you with the information you need to negotiate better pricing and that is the intention of everything I do at SolarWakeup. I want the installers to be armed with tools and data that make their businesses thrive. To participate in the index, to read more about it.

Lead Generation In Focus. An interesting thing happened over the past few weeks. The solar industry hit a bottom in sales decline and then bounced back up. While we are still below pre-COVID levels, there is a path back to the growth plan we had going into the year. The path is different now though but companies are adapting to the normal and restarted their lead generation investments. That is the focus of this week’s tracking survey, open now for participation.

A Safer Power Grid. On Friday, Trump issues an executive order aimed to protect the power grid from foreign adversaries. The executive order highlights the bulk-power systems in critical infrastructure and gives the Department of Energy some power to get involved. As most of your legal teams have highlighted, we don’t really know what this means for our industry but it could be big.

Big Storage. Not withstanding the potential impact of the executive order mentioned above, SCE signed a big storage deal for 770MW of 4-hour battery if the story is accurate. This is scheduled to come online in 2021 and on the end of Tesla’s earning call saying that they don’t have enough storage capacity to meet the demand growth. More to come on this including a podcast I recorded about storage manufacturing, costs and supply chain. You can hear that by searching for SolarWakeup in your podcast app, subscribing and rating.

Webinars For All. B2B marketing is reaching a new level because trade shows and in person meetings are no longer available and I don’t think that’s such a bad idea. SolarWakeup will also take our in person events digital and host at least a monthly webinar with interesting speakers on topics relevant to your business. Many of those content ideas come from the feedback I get from you when you email me or write it on the survey. The first zoom SolarWakeup Live is with Andrew Birch, c0-founder of Sungevity and co-founder of OpenSolar. We’re spending an hour taking your questions and talking about digital solar installer operations. Register here. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for May 1st, 2020

The Burden Of Electricity. It’s a fact that the current situation is creating increased pressure on inequality. From schooling children without internet to the cost of electricity, everything is exacerbated. Low income families spend more of their income on utilities by a large percentage than higher income families. Solar can play a vital role in helping resolve this problem through community solar or utility programs. Glad to see Vote Solar highlighting this issue.

Big Oil Has ‘Concerns’. There is an internal oil dialogue happening in public right now. API and large oil companies are concerned about socializing the losses through government intervention. Smaller companies are saying help us or we go under. This comes as the Federal Reserve opens possible avenues to help the industry with less oversight which is really what the argument is about. It will be important for members of Congress to ensure that the stimulus for energy companies helps all parts of the economy because we don’t want to be picking winners and losers do we?

Storage Peaking. BNEF published it’s updated LCOE report and highlighted the competitiveness of solar plus storage with peaking generation. Peaking plants according to BNEF generate 15% to 20% of the time which is easily achieved with storage developments. My additional input on this is that 5 years from now it will not even be close. We are rapidly approaching batteries under $100/kWh and that will continue to drop much like solar has. The key is how developers and asset owners decide to push the implementation of those assets.

Inverter Market Outlook. I’ve become increasingly interested in how the market decides the inverter market share across the Country. We have what I would consider a momentary duopoly in the US in residential solar but as market valuations increase, this will change in my opinion. Look at the global market share and it looks different than what you would think.

Survey Is Out. An early release for the survey covering the week of April 27th. Participate to get the full results next week. 

SolarWakeup Live, Virtual Edition. We’re taking the show off the road on to zoom. The first SolarWakeup Live, virtual edition will be next Thursday to talk about how to turn your business digital from lead to install. Register here.

SolarWakeup Live, Podcast Edition. The podcast is also relaunched. Subscribe, rate and listen here. If you have an interesting topic to discuss, reach out to get onto the calendar. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for April 30th, 2020

Get The House In Order. As we near the 8 week mark of the shelter in place orders and a new normal, it is understandable for people to expect others to adapt like everyone has. In this case I am talking about building departments and utilities, particularly PG&E. The solar industry has been patient and working with all involved to make solar installations safe. Meanwhile, PG&E was slammed in court yesterday regarding their operations around tree trimming and wire safety. The future of PG&E should be like a highway operator. The roads need to be safe and run smoothly with local exits and high speed left lanes. When it comes to toll operations, the company needs to prioritize the speed of access to the generators that match the goals set forth by the State. The State should incentivize the company to do this well and everyone wins.

Safe Solar Sales And Installs. Being allowed to get back to work is phase I of the return that centers around building out the backlog. Phase II is the pivot many are figuring out right now. One of those things is how to generate more leads like building out digital content and driving folks to your lead generation forms. Managing this lead flow all the way through project installation without ever seeing the customer means a change to your installation company’s operating system. Next week I am hosting a live webinar with Open Solar’s Andrew Birch to ask him about his experience. In 2008, in an SPI beer garden Birchy and Danny Kennedy showed me this crazy idea on the first Apple iPad where you could type your address on a map and they would send back a layout. That was v1 of digital solar sales. You can register for the webinar here, it is limited to 100 people.

Time Of Opportunity. Buying solar assets is an art that matches sellers somewhere between desperation and greed and buyers with cash burning a hole in their pockets feeling they would miss out on yet another deal. Someone once told me (okay, it was more than once) that developers always hold assets beyond peak value and now buyers are pouncing on opportunities across the market.

It’s Valuable, Not Cheap. Headlines are making the circuit today with the cheapest solar in history. Like most reviews of solar policy across the world, solar is routinely undervalued and underpriced. That’s why many storage developers are getting away from contracted cash flows and working more like generation IPPs.

The RTOs. New Jersey had threatened earlier and now Maryland is saying they may leave PJM over the MOPR overstep by FERC. The FERC chair is urging patience and caution but maybe he should take these threats more seriously. Showdown to continue…

Opinion

Best, Yann