Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for August 6th, 2018

Getting Down In Illinois. Since coming to Chicago in June, it’s been great how organized the market has grown since that time. the IPA has engaged the program administrator and companies are coming into Illinois to invest capital and hire local talent. The latest announcement is Vivint Solar which follows Sunrun into the market. Other private, national players, appear to be looking at the market as well.

More Arizona Comeback? Sunnova’s first State was Arizona and they are now coming back into the State after leaving some time ago. Frank speaks to the company about the move to re-enter with energy storage and the current regulatory environment. I hope you enjoy the Q&A’s as much as I do, they are the in between a full-length podcast and give more color than a regular article.

A Buyer’s Market. At the risk of repeating myself, I want to tell a story of the message I relayed to a group of university sustainability professionals a year ago. The same is true for anyone that has influence to a large energy user with excellent credit. Large users that can leverage that bankability can pretty much name their price and make the quantity of energy purchased the variable. That’s what I say to any large user, go to market with a contract and bid price instead of the the other way around.

Is Storage Growing? How long until solar for your home comes with an inverter and battery as standard features? I don’t see that very far away in the future, maybe 2023 when the battery is in every system.

Seeing Humor In Tariffs. China put a 25% tariff on US solar cells. The irony is obviously that China doesn’t really import cells but this could be a jab at SQN because Suniva used to send their cells from Georgia to China for module assembly. I definitely chuckled when I saw this headline, meaningless as it is.

Designing Solar. Make sure you check out the best in class solar layout software from Quick Mount PV. QDesign is free for users and leverages great technology to make your layouts a breeze. Of course, it gives you the details of the product you need plus the mechanical portion of your permit package.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for August 3rd, 2018

Welcome to August and if you’re European, I hope you enjoy your vacation! Have a great weekend everyone!

Going 100%, Burlington’s RFP. Burlington, VT wants to become a true net-zero city and wants help to do so. The RFP reads like a checklist of legislative goals that are a great guide for other cities at the least and aspirational in the ways that Burlington seeks to achieve its future. Well done.

A PACE Securitization. Congrats to my friends at CleanFund for a $103million securitization of PACE assets that crossed borders and technologies. Most importantly it was rate AAA, which shows the strength that PACE can provide to financings in the C&I space.

Corporate Green Tariffs. Between utility offtake and community, solar/contract for differences in the green tariff. A rate schedule that allows corporations to use their leverage in an economic development process to grow the production of solar generation in the service area. I think that many states that don’t want markets will have to create a quasi QF program for green tariffs.

Public Company Updates. Tesla and SolarEdge filed their quarterly updates yesterday. Tesla short sellers are getting into some pain and SolarEdge continues to show the future of DG solar.

Thoughts On MA? What’s your feedback on the MA legislation that passed this week now that you have had time to review it? Let me know.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for August 2nd, 2018

A lightning round recap today on the top news in your solar inbox. Speaking of quick and easy, make sure you check out the junction box with integrated flashing for your residential installs. Available at most distributors across the Country.

Gone With The Wind. An Iowa nuclear power plant is closing in favor of more wind. This comes from one of the largest nuclear power operators, NextEra. Aside is the internal power struggle since CEO Jim Robo is a avid supporter of nuclear power and nuclear engineering. In the Spain wind rush a decade ago, Robo was notorious for his disdain for the money lost by his company in those projects.

Look At This Picture. You saw this article yesterday but when I looked at it again yesterday afternoon the picture caught my eye. It is a stock image of an installation in the Miami area. This is what many homeowners are getting now and it’s a shame. It also shows how much more we have to do to educate the AHJs and getting SEIA and the NRCA to warn consumers about the roofing aspect of solar.

Electrify It All. I can’t wait until the high mileage, route vehicles are electrified. The delivery trucks, transit and school buses, and postal vehicles are on/off or idling all day long. The routes and distances are very precise so the battery sizing is easy to calculate. The other side of mass electrification is how the concentrated charging will cause hotspots and peak power needs that will likely get served by batteries.

More PV Manufacturing. It looks like the Tesla plant in Buffalo is ramping up, good to see this happening. I haven’t seen them in the wild but hope to soon. Maybe some of the Tesla employees can invite me over now that I’m a local to the Bay area.

More FPL, In Florida. Florida solar is growing quickly, this time with more IOU rate based solar to the tune of 300MW from FPL. I think this type of capacity is causing FPL to think bigger than a threat from DG by focusing on EV growth and the upside of rate base for their shareholders.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for August 1st, 2018

Mediocre Sausage Making. The MA legislature passed a solar bill yesterday and pardon my lack of excitement. While a bill moving key features forward and a path to remove the fixed charges are included, the NEM cap continues to be punted and the opportunity to give consumers more ability to add solar has been lost for now. Nonetheless, there are important legislative wins and some messages to other utilities that hope to structure anti solar rates, for that this is a solar victory. Hats off to the advocates in solar for getting forward movement but the twitter statement from Vote Solar’s Sean Garren summarizes the final bill. “In like a lion, out like a lamb”

Reviewing California’s Solar Mandate. I appreciate the continued partnership with Barry Cinnamon and his wonderful podcast, The Energy Show. In the latest edition, you will hear him discuss the CA solar mandate on new homes. This is an important topic for me in my day job at Quick Mount PV. New homes represent a great opportunity to lower the cost of solar in a new installation while presenting ways to install attractive solar in a way that still holds quality for 30 years. That quality is sometimes missed because the transaction isn’t with the longterm owner so we appreciate the opportunity to educate homebuilders and installers on making sure its a leak free, quality installation.

Educated Consumers Consume Less. Last week during the heat wave in California (I can confirm that it is warm, but not Florida hot) consumers were asked to lower their energy consumption to ensure blackouts wouldn’t happen. That’s the funny thing about consumers, they can be helpful when educated and can be one of the best demand response tools if planned for properly. That’s the other side of renewables integration that folks don’t plan for. Consumers can, especially with new technology, adapt their habits to get what they want which is 100% renewable energy.

Solar Tariffs To Nowhere. Another great data point about the tariffs, this time the steel and aluminum tariffs. The tariffs are causing disruption more than innovation and in some instances result in worse installs for consumers. If aluminum prices rise, installers don’t replace tiles properly, take a look at the header image on the article. The installer did some sort of hack instead of using a proper tile replacement flashing, happy to show them one if they’d like.

Does Your Neighbor Solar? When I put solar on my home, my neighbors had lots of questions about it. How do you arm your customers and how do you respond to neighbors that are interested in solar? Would love to highlight great ideas here.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann