New Mexico To Add Solar To Serve Facebook (Or How Corporates Are Driving Solar Adoption)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

It’s stories like this that remind us all how corporates are going to drive solar adoption in many solar-reluctant states. New Mexico, which has had a contentious relationship with solar, is going to add 100 MW of solar in order to serve the electricity needs of a corporation of which you may have heard.

PNM Resources’ New Mexico utility, PNM, received approval on Wednesday from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC) to purchase 100 megawatts of solar generation from NM Renewable Development, LLC (NMRD) in order to continue serving the Facebook data center in the state with 100 percent renewable energy. This addition supports the goal to achieve a more sustainable energy portfolio at PNM.

“Opportunities for solar energy are abundant in New Mexico, and Facebook’s growth allows us to demonstrate our commitment to making our state a sustainable energy leader,” said Pat Vincent-Collawn, chairman, president and CEO of PNM Resources. “We are proud to support Facebook’s presence in our state.”

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NMRD, a joint venture between subsidiaries of PNM Resources and American Electric Power, will build two 50 megawatt solar photovoltaic generation facilities in New Mexico. The first facility is expected to be operational by the end of 2019, followed by the second facility in June 2020. Each facility is expected to result in approximately $70 million of investment in New Mexico and create approximately 200 construction jobs.

“With these two new projects, we have worked with PNM to bring 396 megawatts of new wind and solar projects that will contribute to a greener grid and help bring more renewable energy and investment to New Mexico,” said Bobby Hollis, Head of Global Energy at Facebook. “We appreciate the state’s supportive environment that has enabled us to procure this amount of renewable energy so quickly.”

Solar and wind projects constructed to serve Facebook are expected to total approximately $800 million of investment in New Mexico and create over 1,300 construction and permanent jobs, representing significant economic development in Valencia, Bernalillo, Quay, Torrance, Cibola and Sandoval counties.

The agreements are subject to approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Will There Be A New Jersey Solar Industry For Us To Discuss? (Yes.)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

As SolarWakeup Live! heads to Jersey City, New Jersey, in about three weeks, I was startled to run across a story at the website NJSpotlight with the following headline:

COLLAPSE OF NJ SOLAR INDUSTRY, BIG LAYOFFS IF NO INTERIM STATE PLAN — WARNING

Because I understand clickbait when I see it, I did not immediately pull out my phone and call SolarWakeup Managing Editor Yann Brandt and tell him to abort his trip out East. Instead, I clicked on the link to figure out exactly what writer Tom Johnson was talking about.

It turns out that it’s not nearly as scary as he made it sound – at least if New Jersey legislators get their acts together and do something about the transition period between the old solar compensation structure and the new one signed into law by Governor Phil Murphy earlier this year.

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Based on the people told the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities at a public meeting yesterday, of course, the headline might be accurate. But the truth is the legislature has six months to figure this out, so the use of the word “imminent” might be a little much.

Still, according to NJ Spotlight writer Tom Johnson, the solar industry painted a pretty grim picture. To wit:

Unless there is a seamless transition, the industry could shut down, solar executives told state regulatory officials at a stakeholder meeting in Newark yesterday. If that happens, it could cause massive layoffs in a sector that now employs more than 7,000 and has invested in excess of $10 billion in New Jersey.

The collapse also could leave many solar projects — including those undertaken by school systems, municipalities, hospitals and others — as money-losing ventures. Loans and bonds used to finance them would be difficult to repay as revenues from the solar systems would fall short.

If I were on the Board of Public Utilities, that kind of testimony would leave me terrified. But don’t worry – we’ll sort it all out at SolarWakeup Live! on November 6 in Jersey City. You have Yann Brandt’s word on it.

More:

COLLAPSE OF NJ SOLAR INDUSTRY, BIG LAYOFFS IF NO INTERIM STATE PLAN — WARNING

SolarWakeup Podcast: Brad Klein, Senior Attorney, Discusses How We Got The Future Energy Jobs Act Of 2016

By Yann Brandt, Managing Editor

In this episode of the Energy Wakeup podcast, we sat down with Brad Klein, senior attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center. He and the team at ELPC were instrumental in bringing Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act of 2016, and Klein takes us behind the scenes to discuss exactly what that process – long and arduous as it sometimes was – looked like.

Whether it was the threatened closure of nuclear plants or the coal industry piping up near the end of the process to get involved, Klein says what ultimately brought about the law was the willingness of the solar industry, in conjunction with community organizations and environmental justice groups, to stick together in the face of overwhelming pressure from well-organized opponents. He says it would have been easy to cut several different deals among the different participants, and the utilities are skilled at making that happen. But no one on the solar side blinked, and that’s why the bill has such a strong solar component to it.

Listen to the whole discussion to hear Klein discuss the details of the negotiations and why, despite some early growing pains and speed bumps along the way, he believes the Future Energy Jobs Act has laid the foundation for a strong, vibrant solar industry in Illinois for years to come.

kWh Analytics Compiles List Of Active Tax-Equity Investors

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

As the tax incentives begin to wind down, it’s even more important than ever to be able to identify investors who can afford to take on sufficient tax equity to consummate solar projects.

To do the due diligence to figure out who is currently interested in using equity to fund the project, however, can often increase costs and render deals undoable.

Which is why having a company like kWh Analytics, a solar risk manager, do some portion of the work for you is such a boon. This morning, the company released its Solar Lendscape for Tax Equity, a free resource that profiles 28 tax equity investors. For developers looking to raise capital, the Solar Lendscape catalogs the industry’s most active debt and tax equity investors, including details on check size, target market segments, and product type.

The industry’s first Solar Lendscape was released in June 2018 and initially focused exclusively on providers of debt. Following industry interest, kWh Analytics developed Solar Lendscape for Tax Equity to also include an overview of tax equity investors.

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Project development is known to be a complex engagement in which the rules and variables regularly change. One of the most important variables for a developer to track is the availability of capital. Leveraging their experience working with investors, kWh Analytics built a simple, free tool to help developers assess the investor landscape and find the right partner for their projects.

“Solar Lendscape should prove a useful tool for developers trying to raise capital for their projects,” says Keith Martin, Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright. “It was inevitable that someone would create an internet portal to help with that process.”

Fast facts from the Solar Lendscape for Tax Equity:

Most organizations are using partnerships as a preferred structure.
Nearly a dozen investors are investing in community solar.
There was an influx of new tax equity providers in 2017, following the extension of the investment tax credit in 2016.