Tag Archives: Daily Rundown

This is your SolarWakeup for March 15th, 2018

2017 Solar Market Data Is Out. Frank has the details for you on the 2017 data that is out fresh this morning. 2016 kicked 2017’s a$$ but we knew that was coming. 2016 had two big advantages on 2017, the ITC pull forward and the 201 fight in 2017. As an industry we still surpassed 10GW in total capacity with utility scale leading the way once again. Resi retracted but non-residential made some gains. We’ve got the reaction from across the solar industry for you to judge against your own thoughts. One thing to consider is that solar came in behind natural gas but just yesterday the Arizona regulators put a halt on all new natural gas in Arizona unless the utilities request a waiver and show that solar plus storage is not a better choice. (Hint: this may be the start of the end for new gas) Here’s the full story.

Things You’ll Find On Twitter. Having the ability to report on original content is giving me a new look on Twitter, especially as I sit in airports across the Country. This time I ran across a tweet storm from an NRDC attorney, Miles Farmer, who was giving the play by play on a new FERC filing. It’s worth a read and consideration when you realize that our market is still subject to so many different levels of regulation that many of us never think of.

The Koch Re-Education. Last year we spoke about the moves by utilities and Koch backed groups to pay for community leaders to preach anti-solar in churches across the solar belt. The gig appears to be over as new economic opportunities are shown in our industry and community leaders are pushing back. Misleading education is apparent across the country and anytime it falls flat is a good day.

Larry Kudlow. Is going to be the next Gary Cohn, aka #1 economic advisor to Trump. Kudlow loves Reagan and Art Laffer. For Kudlow, the free market will solve all problems. Which means that all tariffs will be gone by the end of next week! Well, that is unlikely to happen because Kudlow is going to realize that he will either have played a free market capitalist on TV or his stay in the White House will be short lived. This is a reminder that Scaramucci also spent a lot of time on the CNBC air over the years.

3 Million EVs. Volkswagen is planning on building 3 million EVs in 2025. That’s only 6 years from now and I wouldn’t be surprised if they beat that. Energy demand growth curves may be flat over the past decade but don’t expect that trend to stay the same. With announcements like these, I am not surprised that companies like EVgo are making big executive moves in anticipation of growth.

Wakeup San Francisco. New speaker announcement! Joining the discussion is Lindsay Saxby of Marin Clean Energy, a CCA that has been an active buyer for solar energy. Lindsay is the Power Supply Contracts Manager for MCE and will be a great discussion about how CCAs operate in the grid and the role they could play for our sector. You can get your tickets here for the event just 4 weeks from now.

March Madness Bracket. SolarWakeup is having the 1st annual March Madnessbracket challenge and it’s free. Go to ESPN Tournament Challenge and search for SolarWakeup group. The password is GoSolar. The more folks we have, the more fun we will have. The winner gets to write the opening paragraph and promote their agenda, company or cause. You must fill out your brackets today, before the first game starts.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March 14th, 2018

COSEIA. Join me tomorrow in Denver as I interview the team behind the Clean Energy Federal Credit Union, a project years in the making. What questions do you want to hear answers to? How can the lending community help your business?

Taxes and Tariffs. We will be talking a lot more about tariffs this week but it’s clear that tax reform and tariffs had a huge effect on the year solar had in 2017. Now that those things are figured out, people are back to putting their heads down and getting stuff done. Question for you, what is it going to take for C&I to get into the multi-MW scale?

Semis and Buses. I am intrigued by the business opportunities that electric vehicles present in our energy future. Made more interesting by the deployment of electric semis and buses in fleets of the future. First, electric vehicles are simply better. Second, we have a lot of work to do to enable the fleets to not be affected by long duration charging. My guess is we are a few years from energy demand growing in the US.

He Is Back. Arnold, man of many accomplishments, has a major task ahead of him. He is suing the oil companies for their failure to disclose the health risks of climate change. Comparing it to the tobacco companies, he wants to use civil litigation to drive some change. I wonder if he’s been approached to help the solar space.

San Francisco. We will have some big news including another speaker for Wakeup Live SF this week, mark April 10th on your calendar to join your colleagues.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March 13th, 2018

Old Grid, New Energy. Some of today’s best stories are on Twitter when an expert gives his take in the snippet format. Sometimes that information gets covered by our Frank Andorka (reminder: you can send anonymous tips from solarwakeup.com or email him or myself). In this case, he covered the responses by the various ISOs to FERC’s request for information about resiliency. This is part of the NOPR process we saw a few months ago. The takeaway, our grid isn’t made for new energy generation and wires are the weakest link. His story here.

Big Time Virginia Legislation. A big utility bill that passed the Virginia legislature and has now been signed by Governor Northam. Amongst the many issues this bill tackles, it declares 5GW of solar and wind development in the public interest. Bills like this take years to accomplish and solar’s role was in the weeds for much of that time. One of the people that I know was deeply involved in this is Scott Thomasson of Vote Solar. If you plan on doing business in Virginia, come say thank you in person at Equinox 2018. More coverage on this coming shortly, check solarwakeup.com in a few hours.

Overhyping Bad News. Yesterday there was an article about solar taking a break in California. It was the top story you clicked on and therefore we covered it. First, top gravitating to the bad headlines. Second, most of these articles are clickbait based on misread data. So we set the record straight in our afternoon story so that you get the complete picture.

RPS Ballot Initiatives. 2018 is going to be a big year for ballot initiatives. Amongst the many issues across the Country are three RPS questions being posed in Arizona, Nevada and Michigan. I’m optimistic that these questions will do well at the polls not only because of a wave but because people like the idea of more clean energy in the wake of closing power plants.

See You There? I am waiting for two confirmations of great interviews to join two already great solar leaders, Bernadette Del Chiaro and Danny Kennedy. The venue selection is going on now so if you expect to attend, get your tickets now. Event is on April 10th.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann

This is your SolarWakeup for March 12th, 2018

Prosumerism Consolidation. Before Innogy existed and E.ON split itself, RWE and E.ON were the German utilities trying to make sense of the new direction of the power economy. Germany led the way in solar before everyone else and eventually RWE and E.ON realized they had two distinct businesses. Power plants and consumer services. Both of them created a prosumer business, spun out from the parent company. Now, E.ON is acquiring innogy, the RWE prosumer business in a complicated transaction. For solar, especially in the US, it doesn’t mean much except for a bigger player on the block in E.On. Both entities have been investing heavily, more on that to come. Most notable units with the transaction is Belectric (owned by innogy) which appears to be heading to RWE once the transaction closes.

Vote Solar’s Michigan Report. Frank Andorka covered the report released by Vote Solar late last week. We’ve talked about the strategic shift in Vote Solar’s tactics to opine on issues that otherwise wouldn’t affect solar except now solar is a better choice for consumers. This report presents the data to make it so and hopefully the regulators will listen. These types of projects are not free nor cheap. Vote Solar needs your help to make markets like Michigan prosper so you can do business there. Join me and hundreds of solar friends at Equinox 2018 in San Francisco next week on the 22nd. Reminder: if you buy 10 tickets and send me the receipt, you get to write a paragraph here.

Storage Market(s). Make sure to catch my conversation about dc-coupled energy storage or read the write up from Frank. This was recorded at SolarWakeup Live! New York. A lot of hype about dc-coupled has got storage companies claiming big things but I spoke with one that has had it up and running for a year. If you are doing solar farms or C&I, you’ve got to be thinking about storage.

Oklahoma? My friends know that this is the State that I want to make the poster child of energy systems. So when I read about EV growth in Oklahoma and feedback from people that bought an EV, I get excited. OG&E and the other utilities have such a great opportunity to send us a postcard from the future.

SolarWakeup Live San Francisco. The second speaker to join us on the SolarWakeup Live! stage is Bernadette Del Chiaro, the Executive Director of California Solar and Storage Association. Everyone knows Bernadette and the work she’s done to bring CalSSA to where it is today. She is going to be a great conversation and will give us the insight on the legislative agenda ahead for the largest market in America. Get your tickets now, WAKEUP20 for 20% off.

March Madness Bracket. SolarWakeup is having the 1st annual March Madness bracket challenge and it’s free. Go to ESPN Tournament Challenge and search for SolarWakeup group. The password is GoSolar. The more folks we have, the more fun we will have. The winner gets to write the opening paragraph and promote their agenda, company or cause. Must have your bracket complete by Tip-off on the 18th.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann