EGEB: Loan shark puts squeeze on US solar, Denmark suntax, SolarWorldUSA gives 60 day notice, more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

SolarWorld USA planning in case of mass layoffs within 60 days – For the right global buyer, this company – its vertically integrated resources, brand name, trained devoted distribution arm, etc – is going to be worth investing in. The buyers will have to shed all debt and probably think real hard about supply chain management and product positioning. I’d suggest capital coming from Germany and/or the US, plus China because of sensitives and realities. If someone can manage this with a political touch and market it just right – they’ll have a jump started premium quality solar panel manufacturer.

Finance company using solar trade war to get their money – SQN Capital Management says Suniva Inc. owes it more than $51 million for the purchase of factory equipment it financed. SQN said it’s bankrolling the U.S. trade complaint by Suniva in a bid to help that company recover – You must be one coal-hearted, candy stealing, Scrooge McDuck – or just a hedge fund manager – to want to stick it to the entirety of the USA to get your money. I do have to say though, as a guy who doesn’t have $51M on the line, I ought step back. Anyone want to buy some solar manufacturing hardware? Maybe we can get the companies that buyout SolarWorld to pick this hardware up – a 2 for 1 political dance move.

Denmark seeking to tax solar self consumption – Should solar power be taxed if you produce and use it in the house? Depends – did the military of your country help create a stable environment in which you were able to install and benefit from those solar panels? If yes, then – yes, solar produced onsite consumed onsite should be taxed. This is our social contract.

Solar Company Sunrun Branch Was Manipulating Sales Data, Say Former Managers – In the run up to the 2015 Initial Public Offering, managers of the Hawaiian operations were not accounting for home solar cancellations. These cancellations represented 40% of the total orders of that time period in that market. An employee also talks about he slowly moved the built up cancellations through the system after the IPO in a ‘drip drip’ fashion so no one would notice. That smells like stock fraud.

A Chinese turbine maker with a practice of seeking local workers sees benefit in focusing attention on a core group of Trump supporters in need of jobs – You know, we could hire every single coal miner in the country with managing wind farms alone. Then probably every former auto worker in the solar industry designing and installing panels for the next 30 years. Smart Chinese company training and employing workers where it gets projects. Wisdom.

Tucson Electric Power to buy cheap solar power from solar-storage project – First, they’re buying electricity from this 100MW solar project at less than 3¢/kWh for 20 years – that’s a great price. Amazing. Secondly, there is a 30MW battery storage system connected to this solar – but they say something weird about it, ‘excluding the cost of storage’ when describing the cost of the electricity. Maybe they’re using the storage for something else? Doing its part to stabilize the solar? Happy to see large solar+storage in Arizona. Cheap electricity, minimal state level support.

Home Batteries Aren’t Economical (in most places) —Yet – I added the ‘in most places’ to the headline there. Basics of the article is that the US grid is stable and electricity is relatively cheap, as such buying a battery for the house doesn’t make sense if you’re doing it so save cash. This is correct, mostly. If you’re in a high electricity cost place – then the equation changes. If you live in a place with time of use charges – again, another change. If you’re in Australia, Germany or the UK – then maybe yeah. Of course, if you are a utility comparing a gas peaker plant or you’re off grid – batteries are in the money right now. None of these things were economically viable three years ago. Home batteries aren’t economical, yet.

So, yeah, that whole 1998 global warming pause? Actually, the year deniers of reality look at to hide from global warming is the year we should have been looking at as the most obvious reason to take serious action.

Remember the time that "global warming stopped in 1998"?
Those were the days. April 2017 second warmest on record.
Graph: @steeph, of course pic.twitter.com/xX5qExOJHz

— Kees van der Leun  (@Sustainable2050) May 15, 2017

Two tweet Tuesday – Here’s a chart showing reality (big black arrow headed up) versus predictions by the International Energy Association. There have been many articles written on this topic – including by the IEA! It’s ok that the IEA is wrong – in fact, it’s probably a thing we’ll never get rid of – experts are not able to see all trends all the time. Have hope folks.

I made a graph showing the historic track record of the IEA in predicting solar: reality steeply increasing but IEA is having none of it. pic.twitter.com/Mq5Jx8LY6z

— AukeHoekstra (@AukeHoekstra) May 21, 2017

Header Image is more from the Dong Energy press page

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