Clean Power. Whether we want to generate the energy we need for load growth with solar and wind, or replace peaker plants with energy storage, these companies will be in Minneapolis this week. It’s a competitive landscape for batteries and of course you should run your batteries on FlexGen’s operating system, where you’ll find me at the booth most of the week. If you have any fun events that I should know about, let me know. All About Configurations. So much of solar, wind and storage is how many different combinations of OEM, PCS, solar plant controls, and power plant controls in e ..read more

Reuters: Dominion planning to power 15 more data centers in 2024 Renewable Energy World: Prices remain reasonable at MISO 2024 capacity auction- except in one zone Canary Media: Tesla won the EV charging race. So why’s it gutting its Supercharger team? Bloomberg: Sunnova Evaluating Options for Deeply Discounted Debt, CEO Says Energy Storage News: Plus Power secures US$82 million tax equity investment for Arizona BESS PV-Tech: US shingle provider GAF Energy opens 250MW manufacturing plant in Texas Heatmap News: The Best Idea From Today’s Big Oil Hearing Opinion PV-Magazine: First Solar beats ..read more

Utility Dive: AEP faces 15 GW of new load, driven by Amazon, Google, other data centers – interim CEO Fowke Energy Storage News: G7 nations set 1500GW global energy storage target for 2030 Bloomberg: Sunnova Energy Huddles With Adviser on Balance Sheet Options Axios: PG&E seeks KKR deal to help fund California wildfire prevention Reuters: Microsoft, Brookfield to partner on renewable energy projects Solar Bilder: The eclipse’s path of totality as seen in solar PV monitoring data PV-Tech: Matrix Renewables, Hyundai sign 147MW solar PPA in Texas Renewable Energy News: New Jersey seeks fourt ..read more

Bloomberg: PG&E in Talks with KKR to Sell Minority Stake in Power Unit Axios: Department of Energy dives into promises and perils of AI PV-Magazine: CATL presents EV battery with 1,000 km range New York Times: Hydrogen Offers Germany a Chance to Take a Lead in Green Energy Reuters: China, US to hold climate meetings in Washington in May PV-Tech: Philippines to add 2GW of installed solar capacity in 2024 Renewable Energy World: Minnesota saw 54% zero-carbon power in 2023, hitting clean energy milestones Energy Storage News: Natron Energy starts manufacturing ‘50,000+ cycle-life’ sodium-ion ..read more

Tax Equity Transfers. Tax equity transfers are a game changer for monetization of the valuable tax credits but there’s a minor wrinkle. Typically when tax equity was in play, it was either funded at NTP or bridged by the construction loan since the takeout financing was in place. With credits, takeout funding is a bit more flexible and nuanced. So here’s the question to the SolarWakeup think tank, who’s doing the best structure and funding tax equity bridges from NTP to commercial operation for the tax credits? If you are, send those names this way so I can help connect both sides of the ..read more

Ready For Battery Primetime? We’re still in April and ERCOT is already putting peak notices into effect and California warns of blackouts. How well is your battery performing and what are you most concerned about? I’d love to hear from you and understand what you look at in the morning when running your battery. Tracker Bonanza. Nextracker opened additional manufacturing line in Pittsburgh, Array Technologies hosted the Secretary of Energy at their factory opening in New Mexico and Nevados expanded capacity in Texas. There’s a drive for new capacity in the tracker market and it’s ri ..read more

New York Times: Key Solar Panel Ingredient Is Made in the U.S.A. Again Axios: EPA moves to curb power plant CO2 in landmark move Utility Dive: DOE sets 2-year deadline for federal transmission permitting, cutting average timelines in half PV-Magazine: IRS issues final guidance for clean energy tax credit transferability Bloomberg: Why the World Needs More Copper — a Lot More Copper Reuters: California set for solar, storage surge in zonal grid plan Renewable Energy World: LevelTen Energy launches clean energy tax credit marketplace Opinion Energy Storage News: Energy storage market grew fas ..read more

Trade Saga. We’ve been here before, another anti-dumping trade case has been filed. This time highlighting subsidies and unfair pricing from product with the origin of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. There was some thoughts that India could be included but it was not. We now embark on a 6 month process with a check-in in July for a preliminary determination. The filing has the name of some US based manufacturers that filed the case, namely First Solar and Q-Cells. Given the IRA benefits for domestic manufacturing, I wonder what the impact of local subsidies could imply to the ca ..read more

Houston. Good morning from 37,000 feet as I head to Houston for the Voltility Energy Storage Summit. This is becoming one of my favorite events because it is centered around networking and not pay for play advertisements on the handful of panels. While I love going to many events and understand the incredible cost to put them on, having done that with SolarWakeup Live! I love being in person with other leaders building out this market. Should we bring back the SolarWakeup Live! event? Bloomberg: SunPower Slides After Disclosing Plans to Restate Earnings Reuters: Enphase forecasts revenue ..read more

Negative Price Signals. I always have a hard time with bad headlines. While the Washington Post article doesn’t say anything novel, the headline implies that solar is such terrible energy that it gets thrown away. What it doesn’t say is two important things. First is that cheap solar energy has lowered the cost of energy for all of California in a way that nobody every predicted with a plethora of low cost PPAs that have no commodity price adjustment for fuel. Second, is that a negative price, is a price signal for investments that leverage arbitrage, like batteries. Energy storage arbitr ..read more