Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for February 5th, 2020

More Tomorrow. Trade show time means less time to write. Send me your news stories

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 4th, 2020

Virginia Is For (Solar) Lovers. Advocates have been pushing solar policy and negotiating tactically in Virginia for years. Their patience, steadfastness and political shifts at the capital is making Virginia a market to watch. We’ve seen major corporate purchases for big tech and university systems which made we think of a market that hasn’t taken off yet. Why can’t corporate purchasing and DG come together? The C&I warehouses seem like a great place to produce energy for off site users.

December Numbers. Look at those German solar installation numbers. Especially the 195MW installed under 750kW on rooftops across the Country.

Dynamite CapDyn. I’ve known the team at Capital Dynamics for a few years and their ability to execute and transact continues to impress. Far from their usual acquisition methodology, Capital Dynamics signed a 100MW PPA in Indiana.

A Bridge Too Far. Natural gas is often referred to as the bridge fuel and plenty of generating capacity is betting shareholder dollars on that fact. Much of the gas is so useless, especially on the oil fields that it simply gets burnt, aka flared. I guess that in some way that’s as wasteful as the daily solar spill that hits the earth without a solar panel in the way (but much dirtier).

Public PG&E? California’s Senator Wiener, a bold leader that isn’t afraid to tackle the toughest topics and has been a big solar leader, is calling for PG&E to be taken over by the State. He wants the management to be employed by the State with the 24,000 workers to be hired by the company in a way that doesn’t affect their compensation and pension. The labor component has been one of the trickier pieces of the State’s thoughts on this topic, rightfully so.

Presented By EcoFasten. EcoFasten, a solar mounting hardware company and part of Esdec U.S., is making its rail-based, click-in-place ClickFit Rooftop Solar System available to all installers in the United States. “Time is money in solar installation. That’s why we’re extremely excited to bring the fastest-installing solar racking system to the U.S. solar market.” For more information visit EcoFasten.com/clickfit

 

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for February 3rd, 2020

The Fossil Fuel Booyah. If you’ve watched CNBC over the past decade, you’re probably used to Joe Kernan’s never ending climate change denial. The enthusiastic Jim Cramer is less focused on the soft issues but calls it how he sees it. That’s why his comments on Friday caught be by surprise. He’s not calling for fossil fuels to go away, his follow up tweets say as much but he does say that investors should get out now. Which makes this the proverbial canary in the coal mine. If fossil companies lose shareholders they lose stock value, losing the value makes it harder to run the company with the capital flexibility it has today. That being said, there is still plenty of cash in the coffers so this isn’t a tomorrow thing..
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The Corona Impact. With the coronavirus impacting larger areas of China and some cases spreading around the world, the supply chain teams in solar are starting to look into the impacts that this could create to the booming solar industry in the US. The Chinese new year has been extended in some areas of China which means some delays could occur if the virus continues to spread..
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Scale To Drive Retail. Now that early adopters have shown that EVs are viable, additional scale will drive the price down for EVs to be the first, second and third choice. It took 20 years from plasma TVs to go from $10k for a 42” to $1500 for a 75” LCD and now we will see corporate fleets 10x the annual volume of electric vehicles and make scale drive down the cost for the rest of the market. Consumers will not only like the price but they will find any anxiety comforted if they see their UPS, Amazon and USPS vehicles running on batteries as well. (solar powered electricity)

Opinion

Best, Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for January 31st, 2020

Have a great weekend! See you next week in San Diego’s Intersolar. Shoot me a note if you will be there, if there are enough folks we will do a SolarWakeup happy hour.

Opinion

Best, Yann