Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for June 8th, 2018

Have a great weekend. See you all in San Francisco next week and in Chicago the week following.

CUSTOMER Side Of The Meter. This may sound like NH’s Liberty Utility is acting with good faith but let’s be real. Anytime the utility wants to own equipment on your side of the meter, they are taking your ability to control your own energy usage away from you. This is the storage version of net metering, owning storage in rate base is one way to exert more control by the monopoly.

The Toll Trump Tariffs Take. Just the 201 tariffs are taking a massive toll on the industry. More than anything, it’s the uncertainty that it caused in an industry that is already struggling to keep its growth going. Every time someone mentions a company having problems to me, the joke quickly follows “Think they’ll file a 201 case?” The aluminum and steel tariffs are going to be a business planning issue as well. Hopefully the industry associations understand that these issues need to be resolved, quickly. The unknown is potentially worse than the result. So between 201, commodity tariffs, and coal bailouts, how many calls have you made to your representative?

Can CCAs Go National? As we see solar go below 3 cents per kWh, you would think that off takers would be on the prowl for more solar generation but that isn’t the case. A lot of new solar is going to the CCAs in California. Solar finance pros are ignoring (out of necessity) some of the credit issues but big solar means big dollars going into projects.

1970 Called, Wants Energy Policy Back. Take a moment and read this ridiculous article about the politics of energy in Trump world. Wouldn’t it be great if solar is the policy that gets Congress to work in a bipartisan way?

Presented By Chicago. Are you investing hundreds of millions into solar projects in Illinois? Make sure you know the rules and for $250, this is the best education you will get. solarwakeuplive.com for your tickets

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 7th, 2018

How Big Will Florida Be? Big! Here’s a couple of things to consider when you think about Florida. First, it’s a really, really big State. It takes 8 hours to drive from Miami to Tallahassee which justifies the 3rd highest usage of electricity in the Country. Second, the building codes here are as tough as they come because of a long history of hurricanes destroying homes. As such, the building officials care about the installation methods and products used, so I expect a quick stop to any subpar installation methods. Third, and most important, ‘everyone’ in Florida wants solar on their home. This is based on being in the Sunshine State and the fact that Floridians have a unique view on consumerism, more on that soon.

Consumers Come First For IPPs. NRG is shedding its power plants, the fossil ones this time. Earlier, NRG had announced it was selling its solar business to a private equity invest at the pressure of an activist investment firm. Getting rid of fossil fuel power plants is the trillion dollar game of hot potato for IPPs and that was foreseeable years ago. Much of the David Crane strategy centered around de-carbonization of the fleet but was also rooted on the fact that coal was finished. This time Wall Street is buying into the strategy, given that that customers are as well. Next step is getting back into EVs so that NRG comes full circle and gives Crane a board seat for his vision.

A Story About Tesla. It’s not all race cars and rocket ships at Tesla. At the shareholder meeting, Tesla announced it has reached a cumulative energy storage capacity of 1GWh. Given the average size of the systems, that is quite impressive and adds a level or storage scale to the company trying to lower the cost of batteries for car buyers. Look back at today as a funny milestone, because it’s so small, compared to what’s coming up.

What’s Next For Trump’s Coal Bailout. The immediate next step is likely a hearing or directive from FERC to the ISOs that will be subject to the coal bailout. It’s also indicative of the absurdity that Exelon came out with a statement against the policy. Good coverage from GTM on the legal aspects of the case.

The Jobs Of The Future. Not too many Wells Fargo carriage coachmen around anymore. That’s what happened when Ford came out with the Model T and the innovation that followed. Solar and wind plus batteries will replace much of the central power plant portfolio. Each time the innovation changes a fundamental sector, jobs have to adapt. The blacksmith became a toolsmith and so on. The same is true for internal combustion motor manufacturing sector, it is going to go away as EVs take the segment over. That is a reality of the future of work, but it isn’t going to happen overnight and economies must plan for it.

Sponsor SolarWakeup Live! Chicago. Join a great crowd of sponsors and attendees for the Chicago event on June 21st. We have a few more sponsorship slots left, email me for more info. Tickets at solarwakeuplive.com

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

 

This is your SolarWakeup for June 6th, 2018

Are You Registered? Our Chicago event is coming up soon and you will not want to miss this because the who’s who of solar is flying in for the full day event. Get your tickets at solarwakeuplive.com and do it quickly because only about half of the tickets are left. This will definitely sell out before event day.

What Can A Major Do For You? My operating assumption is that the solar and storage ecosystem is going to be surrounded by ‘majors’ from oil, auto and energy. Look at the cap tables for energy storage companies that haven’t been acquired yet, it’s the who’s who of anyone that things the future of energy is based on intermittent generation. Look at the solar companies that have regional or segmented platforms and they are being acquired to be turned into a bigger platform to achieve goals like deploying capital or tax liabilities. What would your company look like if a major corporation invested or bought it, what would it allow or deny your team to accomplish?

Can Puerto Rico Attract Investment. I worry about Puerto Rico, even a year after Hurricane Maria destroyed much of the infrastructure. The problem isn’t about what can be done or what should be done. My concern is how it can be deployed financially. Puerto Rico isn’t in a financial position to spend the billions it takes to rebuild with renewable microgrids and it hasn’t fixed the underlying credit problem that would allow outside investors to be comfortable with the risk.

China Slows, What’s Next? This is the question I asked myself all day yesterday. If China’s market slows and there is an oversupply of modules what does that mean for the US market. This could spell a 2018 where prices reduce dramatically in the US from the oversupply but it could also mean issues around supply chain that can be bad for quality. Stay tuned…

A Greener Hawaii. Forget 100% renewable energy, Hawaii is looking to go carbon neutral in the next 20 years. Lots of work ahead but definitely achievable for this island paradise.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for June 5th, 2018

Strategic Reduction In China’s Solar Market? China’s solar market is in for a shocking halt after an announcement by the governing body last week. Most of the publicly traded solar companies had a bad day yesterday after being downgraded on the change in subsidy policies that kept that capacity flowing at a massive pace. Let’s see how that affects the market pricing in the US, the oversupply could create competition that will center around pricing for the domestic projects. BUT I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t an impact that tries to stop the oversupply from coming this way given the 201 and AD/CVD tariffs are all percentage based charges.

Big EV Infra. I was amiss in speaking about this when it happened over the weekend but multiple regulatory bodies in CA and NY approved over $1billion in EV charging infrastructure to be built by the utilities. This is a massive upside for utilities that not only get to rate base the infrastructure, something I support, but also benefit from the increased load this will create from the EV adoption curve that this will cause since consumers will no longer worry about range. The conversation with regulators should be that any increased demand should be supplied with solar and storage and not rate based power generation.

Will The Consumers See This? The Trump coal and nuclear bailouts are going to cost money but the cost isn’t bourne by taxpayers but it may cause a two stage impact. The first level is similar to steel and aluminum tariffs with manufacturers and will affect the retail energy companies. Some may not have a way to pass the additional cost to the consumers while they are under contract and consumers that are about to renew will be in for a shocking price increase. Not only will consumers pay the actual increase but there will be a regulatory risk premium that otherwise would not have been there in a rational market. The price of the unknown is sometimes bigger than the actual price increase especially when a risk committee has to think about crazy possibilities.

Settling In North Carolina. Environmental and solar groups settled with Duke on their grid modernization efforts which were originally slated for greater than $7billion and settled at $2.5billion with some pro renewables policies attached. This comes in parallel with some leading indicators that Duke may be trying to stop energy storage to be added to solar projects, more on that to come.

Climate Change Financing Risk. Do you look at the climate change risk of a property that you are looking to fund a deal on? How do you do it and have you lost a deal because of it?

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann