Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for January 14th, 2020

Terraform Gets A Bid. Brookfield has placed a bid to the remaining shareholders at TERP to acquire the remaining parts of the company that it doesn’t own yet. Brookfield already owns 62% of the shares and sees enough upside to acquire the rest of the company for a price that is a premium of 11% from the prior night’s closing.

ACORE Has A Dream. Four of them to be exact. An RPS, a carbon tax, clean energy tax credits, and transmission investments are part of the plan to drive a cleaner grid in the future. ACORE is right about the plan, these policies would help the planet and our industries but I am too jaded to see the political path to make it happen.

Airports And Solar. An infrastructure fund that has a portfolio primarily in airport construction and operation is acquiring solar developer, Greenskies. Greenskies has been active in the solar market for sometime and has also been looking for partners like pretty much all solar developers. The interesting evolution is that there appears to be a growing value placed on the actual development platforms not just the projects. This was a hard value to find in the market in the past, maybe things have changed.

Million Solar Roofs. There is something happening in residential solar around the world. Governments are seeing the value and incredible value in residential rooftops that don’t yet have solar. Austria is looking to install 1million solar roofs by 2040, a goal that California just reached last month.

Opinion

Best, Yann

 

 

This is your SolarWakeup for January 13th, 2020

Disasters On Disasters. Every climate related crisis seems to layer horrific images and situations on our society. For some reason, the pictures of koalas holding our hands and kangaroos holding each other is especially sad. Imagine reading that 500 million animals have died, that’s an insane number that will create a generations hole in nature. This is a reminder that we have to be victorious in our work and regulatory expansion of our markets. We cannot fail in this endeavor as well as the work that needs to be done to expand the tent.

Hummer Comeback. The SUV that died due to being a gas guzzler, and relatively useless is making a comeback to your General Motors dealership. GM announced it will be releasing an EV Hummer in 2022 in time to compete with the Tesla Cybertruck, Ford F-150 EV and more. This is a category that should be interesting as it tests the purchase behavior of consumers that aren’t driven to EVs for environmental purposes given they drive SUVs and pickups now. I assume they will be successful which drives a huge increase of load for utilities across the Country and the need for more charging stations.

Puerto Rico Hit Again. Last week an earthquake struck Puerto Rico that knocked out a large part of the grid once again. Years after groups piloted onto the island to show them how their grid should be rebuilt, not much more than talk has occurred. Maybe a different approach should be taken up.

Being Smarter. Utilities have spent billions in ratepayer money to get smart meters onto the homes. What has that yielded those consumers? I am a PG&E customer and it still takes an engineering degree to download and review my consumption data. I’d like to see this data be more easily accessed and readable for consumers and their contractors so that saving energy can be smarter.

Watching BlackRock. BlackRock is one of the largest investors in the world and they announced they would be entering the Climate Action 100+. The world’s eyes and ears are now watching to see what this means and what, if any, changes to investment policies or voting policies occur. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

 

 

This is your SolarWakeup for January 10th, 2020

The Wind and Solar Connection. What if anything is or should be the relationship between wind and solar? Does the growth of the offshore wind market create new opportunities or limit the market potential for solar?

Scaling Corporate Deals. With the expansion of mega solar deals, how do they grow beyond Facebook/Amazon/Google or companies like AnBev? Could the market get into the smaller corporations with different credit profiles and smaller solar or does that simply become community solar or retail choice?

Good For The Goose. The National Grid pension fund is investing new funds into renewables in the UK. I have not seen similar pension moves in the US but it would be interesting to see how 401k’s are changing within their energy portfolios.

Sanders, Reviews and Policy. The Sunrise Movement has endorsed the candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders. Trump is looking to eliminate the environmental reviews for major projects. The House of Representatives is making moves that could set a climate plan in motion if the stars align.

A Climate Warrior Tribute. This SolarWakeup community is amazing, you donated with tremendous generosity allowing the organizers to double their goal for the children left alone. Read the story about Tyshaun and his tragic murder written by solar veteran Michael Healy and colleagues. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

 

 

This is your SolarWakeup for January 9th, 2020

The #Solar1000. I’ve been thinking about the 2020 prediction that I wanted to share since I’m already on the record with saying the residential solar market will grow more than 25% in 2020 even with the ITC stepdown. Looking at data yesterday, I think there is a great chance that more than 50 solar installers will break through 1,000 installs this year. I tweeted the prediction with a timestamp, so you can hold me to it. This is a big step for solar installers, it’s not just running a solar company but actually building a massive business. #waittosee

A SunShot Challenge. When it comes to government programs in the innovation space the SunShot program has been remarkably effective and successful. I can personally vouch that several solar companies exist today thanks to the early help from SunShot when ‘climate tech’ wasn’t something investors were funding. So it’s great to see what appears to be a similar effort get into the storage side of things. I hope the program calls me when they need reviewers once again.

Can We Deregulate? Virginia has a bill filed that would allow for retail energy choice for consumers, breaking off some of the monopoly power held by Dominion. This is likely a legislative long shot but the argument has long been made that neither party should continue to prop up an idea that hinders competition in a free market.

Request For Help. New Columbia Solar from DC lost one of their team members over the holidays. A single father that trained through community groups to be a core part of the solar installers business was tragically killed a few weeks ago. The company is asking the solar community to help raise funds for Tyshaun’s daughters. Thank you for your help. 

Opinion

Best, Yann