Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for December 12th, 2019

Residential Solar Brings Data. According to the latest update from SEIA, in its Solar Market Insight report, residential solar is growing at a rate nobody predicted. Q3, the market for residential grew 45% year over year installing over 700MW. This kind of growth means that 15 States had the highest rate of installation in history. Don’t expect the growth to slow, this is a result of market wide maturity and cost reductions created by the ecosystem even in an era where modules are double the global market cost.

Urgency Drives Person of the Year. When Greta Thunberg started striking by herself on behalf of climate change, not much was expected by her or of her. A year later the urgency she has brought to the discussion has caused politicians around the world to deride and belittle her because she’s young or otherwise naive about the way it is supposed to be. Like all good businesses, Thunberg has a sense of urgency, the time for action is now and not everyone can handle that. Greta is the Time Person of the Year for 2019, and we all win.

New Leader In Loan Market. Wood Mackenzie has Loanpal going to the top of the solar loan market with a continued presence for third party structures. If you want to know how this happened, look at the above paragraph about sense of urgency.

New York Making Changes. Net metering is going to go through some changes in New York but not before a year extension of the current regulations. This way the solar market can get used to the changes that will likely be accepted in the near future.

Today Is The Day. Congratulations to all that installed solar in California in the past decade. You contributed to the 1 million solar roofs initiative that Arnold is celebrating with CALSSA today. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for December 11th, 2019

More Tomorrow. Travel means less time for columns. Make your calls to Congress and send me your news! 

Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for December 10th, 2019

Fix The Link. Here is the correct link to celebrate solar with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Thursday at 1:30pm. Sorry for the error yesterday.

One Last ITC Push. SEIA is asking you to reach out to your member of Congress. This is the way to do it digitally or you can find your rep by clicking here. We have an opportunity to get an extension but you have to make a call today, not tomorrow or the day after. This is the time..
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Bloomberg Goes Global. The former mayor of New York City and Johns Hopkins alumni, Michael Bloomberg, is leading an event on climate change at the COP25 proceedings in Madrid before jetting to California to talk about policies he foresees helping the wild fires in the golden state. With additional TV ad buys, Bloomberg now has the most spend in the field of candidates on TV..
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Blackrock’s Investment Focus. A spokesperson for Blackrock gave an interesting quote on their new fund’s focus with regard to solar. Here’s what they mean when they say that they see opportunities in C&I and storage. As the fund looks to invest $2.5billion dollars, the portfolio managers will want the type of returns they are being told exist in C&I and energy storage (double digits, sometimes). They could invest the full fund quickly in solar farms yielding single digits, but that wouldn’t have the type of juice they are looking for. Quickly, they will find that deploying this scale of capital is going to be a challenge to do in the higher yielding parts of the market. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for December 9th, 2019

He’s Back, Come See Arnold Talk Solar. This Thursday the State of California is celebrating one of solar’s biggest accomplishments, 1 million solar roofs. At a public event, former Governor Schwarzenegger will be unveiling the 1 millionth roof alongside CALSSA’s Bernadette Del Chiaro. Solar in California has no political aisles, it benefits all and Governors from both parties have supported our industry. Clovis is in the Central Valley of the State and you’re invited to be there. We want to show Arnold that when he took a bet on solar many years ago, he was right. A few hours of your time is worth it, reporters in solar should be there as well! Here is the RSVP link

The Next Million. What does the next million look like? It will have plenty of power because CALSSA is announcing the next target of 1 million solar batteries. Wild fires, blackouts and rate schedule changes are causing more and more solar installations to get batteries. Nationally, batteries are attaching at a rate of 15-20% with some areas of California going much higher. That means that we are looking to grow the market to 2-4million solar roofs to get to the 1million solar batteries. If you’re doing the math, the goal is to get to over $10billion market potential for you, the installer or hardware provider. That’s a big audacious goal and we want you to help.

Another Banking Data Point. When the European Investment Bank stops lending to a particular lender, it has ripple effects to the private sector. Typically, banks like the EIB do the heavy lifting and take a particular risk and if they are out it means that other banks don’t follow. The focus is to align the strategy with the policy goals of the EU, in this case renewables. Look for capital to dry up for non-renewables relatively quickly.

Tackling Big Pollution. Making metals is energy intensive and contributes somewhere between 6-7% of the global carbon emissions. That is why a Missouri corporate deal for wind energy is an indicator that could have global implications. In Missouri, steel and aluminum producers get subsidized electricity prices which means that the wind deal was not only cleaner but also cheaper than the cheapest market electricity rate before. 

Opinion

Best, Yann