Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for June 15th, 2018

Will Suniva Find A Buyer? SQN has taken over the company formerly and still, for now, known as Suniva. It will now seek strategic partners, i.e. sell the company, to someone interested in the intellectual property, equipment, and other assets. The obvious name that comes up is the manufacturer that recently announced a Georgia module plant for which it will need cells, which Suniva used to make in Georgia and ship to Asia to be assembled. We shall see.

Industry Wants Certainty On Climate. Amy Harder of Axios has the industry insight on a letter sent Trump stating that climate regulations would create American jobs. Solar also has some great American jobs, some manufacturers making many of the solar mounts and associated equipment in the US.

The New Utility Normal. No more coal, slowing down gas and more renewables. Next week, I will highlight what is happen in the IPP market because those that don’t operate in the monopoly utility market have a particular insight on what is going to happen next for the power plant owners and investors.

SunPower Continues Adapting. We had this first but here it is officially, a partnership between SunPower and Sonnen. I’m a fan of the solar plus storage play having lived in a hurricane zone for many years.

SolarWakeup Live! This Thursday in Chicago. Top solar folks and a marathon day of interviews with me. And if you have seen my interviews, you know that you are going to get information out of the conversation that helps your business. SolarWakeuplive.com is the place to get your tickets.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 14th, 2018

Chicago Is The Place To Be. 1 Week Out! We are about to be at capacity and our agenda looks great. Folks from around the industry are flying into Chicago to be a part of the SolarWakeup breakdown of the Illinois solar market. Get your ticket at solarwakeuplive.com

Trump Gets FERCed. We have a standoff. Perry wanted a coal bailout, then a grid stability study and Trump went for the bailout. But when FERC went to the US Senate, no commissioner would state the need for the bailout, because as we all know it is not needed. What we should be talking about is creating a shorter response time market in the ISOs so that storage and real flexible assets can find the value that they create. Give me a 30 second market and you’ll see the 21st century grid come to life.

Mr. Governor, Instant Permits? The event I have yet to attend and would like to is VERGE in Hawaii produced by GreenBiz. In his comments, Governor Ige spoke about the need for governments to be agile in disruptive moments and when it comes to renewables Hawaii has definitely attempted to stay with the advancements even with the setbacks that were sometimes enacted. So in a week when we look to bring behind the meter small solar to our utopian vision of instant solar installed perfectly, let’s ask Hawaii to be the first to buy into the idea. If you haven’t caught my conversation on the topic, catch it here.

First Solar Rocks Ohio. The plant is not news but the plant has now broken ground. First Solar is investing hundreds of millions in the expansion of the plant to take on the capacity that the utility scale market is looking to fill. With gigawatts of coal and gas coming offline across the Country and solar plus storage offers reaching incredible numbers as we outlined earlier this week, solar will be asked to fill the gap and First Solar is bound to take advantage of this. If you ever wondered how well Wall Street understands our market, look at the one week chart on FSLR after the announcement from China.

Bit Me Up Scotty. Captain Kirk is all in on solar mined bitcoin, while it may not be Potcoin (I will share my Dennis Rodman story with you all at a later time) this is better. It’s almost as good as the solar powered honey that my friends at Connexus Energy sent me after my interview with their CEO at the Midwest Solar Expo a few months ago. Solar powered everything, feel free to send it my way.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 13th, 2018

AC Modules Take Two. Enphase is buying the Sunpower micro inverter business, some of which tracks back to the Austin based inverter company, Solarbridge Technologies. A cash and stock deal also gives Enphase a path into Sunpower’s AC modules which caused the stock to jump up. Sunpower already has the market share in resi with its strong dealer network, which now translates to more market share for Enphase. Great deal for both sides in my opinion, well done.

A Tough Day At Tesla. Elon went to Twitter to publish his company wide email yesterday announcing a 9% cut to the workforce at Tesla plus the end of the retail relationship with Home Depot. I don’t have the details on the 9% that are going to lose their jobs but I have to think that solar will not be unaffected and I always hate to hear that. This will lead to a stronger Tesla and that is something I support. If any solar folks from Tesla are looking for the next big gig, let me know and I’ll do what I can to support your search.

An Idea For Elliot. Elliot which is behind the sale of NRG renewables unit is also involved in the Sempra divestment of its solar assets. I think Elliot should consider doing the same in the IOU business units, many of which have surpassed the monopoly revenue streams. I’m not going to call out particular names but some could double their market cap if they were split and I’m not a financial guru like the analysts are Elliot. Let’s see where they go next.

Big Money For Resi Solar. Vivint tapped the capital markets to lower its cost of debt funding for its projects. This is not only to lower the costs but also to refinance some of the likely shorter term capital for the projects that were placed into service. In any scenario $811million in capital is a big deal and it’s good to see the interest to get involved in this.

Growing US Solar. The quarter’s solar market insight is out and 2018 is on track to be on par with 2017, which is unfortunate because it could have been so much better. On the bright side, we have new great markets in Illinois which we will discuss next Thursday in Chicago, a few tickets remain at solarwakeuplive.com

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 12th, 2018

10 Days Out, Chicago! Next Thursday, join your solar colleagues in Chicago for a full day event hosted by yours truly. We’ll be going over all segments of the solar market in Illinois under the Future Energy Jobs Act and putting the industry in a room to get matched up for dealmaking. Join me and register at solarwakeuplive.com 

Incremental Cost Of Solar. The words, we can add solar at no incremental cost, are dying and will be replaced with, we can add solar at a savings of. Don’t take it from me, listen to Vote Solar’s Adam Browning in this epic tweet thread, which outlines the recent pricing for solar plus storage across the Country. Add this to the value generated by distributed generation and the future is sunny!

Get Involved, Get Efficient. Many of you listened to my interview with Andrew Birch about the solar permitting initiative that the solar industry is rallying around. The objective, in short, is to have solar installed instantly after a customer signs on to the project. The key result is gaining initial municipalities to opt in to accomplish this and take over the Country from there. Are you close to a mayor that wants more solar? Send me a note and let’s get this going. High quality solar installed quickly!

Innovate, Locally. Puerto Rico went through a horrible year rebuilding after Hurricane Maria. After every major power group talked a big game on changing the energy economy it seems that the local solar/storage sectors are taking on the future locally. I guess that makes sense because if you ask EEI to come up with a future vision for Puerto Rico it looks much like the 20th century grid. Self generation isn’t just for power, its for policies as well. Check out the SESA-PR group.

Changing Economies. When I was looking at solar markets across the world it always dawned on me that solar was creating new economies in those Countries. Now that solar is creating incremental savings (see above), it’s great to think about the double bottom line that our industry creates. Plus the environmental benefits to boot!

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann