SolarCity announced yesterday that it will cease sales and installations in Nevada after the state’s Public Utilities Commission approved a 75% reduction of the price electric utilities pay for electricity generated from rooftop solar. The new rule makes net-metering uneconomical and “effectively shut down” the homeowner and 3rd party-owned rooftop solar industry in Nevada, giving a monopoly to utility-owned systems. Expand Expanding Close
U.S. Democrats recently said they were open to a lift of the four-decade-old ban on crude oil exports, if Republicans would allow the bill to include an extension of the federal tax credit for solar installations, which is currently set to decrease from 30% to 10% in 2017.
Several solar companies saw double digits stock price increases on Monday. The surge can be partly attributed to the Paris agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but it was mainly due to reports of negotiation for the renewal of the federal tax credit for solar energy.
Democrats are said to be willing to agree to a lift on the 40-year ban on US crude oil exports, if the bill includes a long-term extension of the wind and solar tax credits. The deal isn’t done, but as the industry is getting closer to the phasing out of the tax credits, which are set to fall from 30% to 10% in 2017, the industry is warning politicians about the impact of inaction. Expand Expanding Close
Just as the Climate-focussed COP21 conference in Paris is drawing to a close, Google has expanded its Project Sunroof tool to cover more metro areas across the US. If you’re thinking of installing solar panels on your home roof, you can now check Project Sunroof in a number of metro areas in California, Massachusetts, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, Colorado and North Carolina. Although no specific cities have been mentioned in the announcement, it’s safe to assume that any major cities in those states should now be covered…
Australia has the world’s highest per capita penetration of rooftop solar technology with 15% of households using solar for a total of 1.5 million households across the country. Electricity prices, which are among the highest in the world, and abundant sunlight contribute to making Australia an excellent market for solar energy and emerging home energy storage products.
Now those households will be able to combine their solar installations with Tesla’s home battery pack: the Powerwall. Origin, the largest electric utility in Australia, announced that it started to officially offer the Powerwall to its customers today. Expand Expanding Close
During the past few months, rooftop solar installer SolarCity has been watching its stock price plummet, along with most of the solar industry. During the past week, Chairman Elon Musk bought 3 blocks of shares between $25.20 and $26.45 to add over 500,000 shares to his now total of 21.3 million shares or about 21% of the company.
Now just a few days after the disclosure of the stock purchase, we learn through a press release from Silver Lake Kraftwerk that Musk invested an additional $10 million in the company through convertible senior notes along with $100 million from Silver Lake and $3 million from SolarCity CEO and Musk’s cousin, Lyndon Rive. Expand Expanding Close
While doing some related LinkedIn research, we found out that Ben Hill, Trinasolar’s President of Europe and Africa, recently left the company to lead Tesla’s Energy division in same the markets.
There’s a big reckoning happening in the solar inverter space right now. SolarEdge, an Israeli startup that we’ve profiled previously just announced bigger than expected earnings, sending their SEDG stock price up 5 points or a whopping 30% in today’s trading… Expand Expanding Close
The discrepancy between first and third-world energy supplies is incredible. Nearly 20% of the world’s population lives without access to common amenities that many of us take for granted. Panasonic has set out with a new line of solar storage products, under its eneloop collection, that aims to provide lasting energy from the sun.
While it will fill an obvious need in electricity-poor countries, it also might not be a bad idea for your own shed or garage. Solar powered batteries have come a long way in recent years and Panasonic plans on leveraging that technology around the world.
On Thursday, Off Grid Electric announced that it had raised US$25 million in a series C round led by the venture capital firm DBL Partners. Previous investors in the company SolarCity, Microsoft co-Founder Paul Allen and eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar’s fund Omidyar Network joined DBL in the financing round. Off Grid Electric, which also advertises under its M-Power brand, offers solar energy as a service in Africa, starting with Tanzania and recently in Rwanda. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity – three companies influenced by Elon Musk – are currently on a massive hiring spree around the US. They already have a combined headcount of over 32,000 employees and the total is set to increase significantly in the coming months. We learned that Musk’s companies are holding joined private recruiting events, the latest of which held last weekend at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Recruiters from each company select students recommended through university programs and invite them to the relatively secretive events to interview with SolarCity, SpaceX or Tesla. Expand Expanding Close
SolarCity, the biggest solar installer in the U.S., will attempt to hire 500 new employees in a single day on October 21. The company already employs over 14,000 workers in the U.S. and is adding more than 500 per month on average.
PR stunt? Maybe, but nonetheless the move is highlighting the importance of the solar industry in the U.S. job market. Expand Expanding Close
Solar Team Eindhoven is a group of 21 students from the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands) who put their studies on hold for over a year to work on what became the Stella Lux; an energy positive solar car.
Energy positive means that the solar panels on the roof of the vehicle can actually produce more energy than the vehicle consumes while driving. Expand Expanding Close
A senior Chinese official speaking to the government’s news agency on Tuesday said that the country will increase its solar capacity from 35.8 gigawatts to 150 gigawatts by 2020. The push would represent a fourfold increase in solar power generation for China, which is already the biggest producer of solar in the world. Expand Expanding Close
Yale University announced the purchase of a 4,400-solar panel installation from SolarCity for its West Campus. The panels are spread on the rooftop of a 350,000 square feet warehouse. Expand Expanding Close
Jim Chanos is a famed billionaire hedge fund manager known for short selling companies. He is also a regular market commentator for CNBC and Bloomberg. Chanos recently disclosed having a short position on solar installer SolarCity (SCTY) and although he refused to disclose his position on Tesla Motors (TSLA), he doesn’t have good things to say about the company.
During an interview with Bloomberg on Monday morning, Chanos explained why he thinks both companies are overvalued, but the “facts” he used to support his opinion are misleading. Expand Expanding Close
Earlier this month SolarCity announced details of a new high-efficiency solar panel it plans on producing at its 1 GW module factory under-construction in Buffalo, NY. The company claimed that the module’s 22.04% efficiency was enough to make it the “most efficient rooftop solar module” ever made. The claim apparently sparked a “war” of high-efficiency solar panels because in the week following the announcement two other solar panel makers claimed to have surpassed SolarCity’s record. Expand Expanding Close
SolarCity announced today a new project with the Temecula Valley Unified School District to install 6 MW of solar energy capacity and 2.6 MWh of energy storage at a total of 19 schools in the district. The solar installations will mainly consist of carports using the company’s ZS Beam system (see picture above). Expand Expanding Close
According to a new report from GTM on Sunday, SunEdison sent out an internal memo last Friday to announce an important restructuring process which will include laying-off about 10% of the company’s workforce. The restructuring comes amid investor concerns about the company’s strategy which has been “all over the place” lately. Most notably, the company’s acquisition of the residential solar installer Vivint for $2.2 billion earlier this summer.
The decision to buy a residential solar provider was out of SunEdison’s core business, which mostly consist of developing utility-scale solar projects. Now the company might have to sell some of these projects in order to get rid of mounting debts (~$10 billion). Expand Expanding Close
SolarCity announced today that it has built the most efficient rooftop solar module with 22% efficiency according to a third party tester: Renewable Energy Test Center. Until now, SunPower’s X-Series panel was considered the most efficient rooftop panel with 21.5% efficiency.
SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive says that the new modules will produce between 350 to 360-watt compared to the company’s current 260-watt panels. Expand Expanding Close
Recent pictures of SolarCity’s ‘Gigafactory’ show that the solar panel plant is, at least from the outside, looking close to be ready for production. The Buffalo News managed to get a bird eyes view of the plant and compared the progress with pictures from a year ago. Expand Expanding Close
Although India probably isn’t a large market for Tesla’s luxury Model S/X and even the $35,000 Model 3 will be a tough sale for normal Indians, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the company’s Fremont car plant does have some immediate ramifications. According to the Indian Foreign ministry, Musk gave the PM a tour of the plant and paid particular attention to the Tesla Powerwall which the CEO noted could, when used in conjunction with Solar, help India’s rural communities bypass the electric grid.
Tesla (and Space X CEO, Solar City Chairman) CEO Elon Musk made some important remarks yesterday at the “Business for Tomorrow” summit at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy yesterday. While the translations and the moderation/questions at the end are frustrating, Musk’s comments at the beginning are poignant.
On Refugees:
“Today’s refugee problem is perhaps a small indication of what the future will be like if we do not take action with respect to climate change. Today, the challenge is in terms of millions of people, but in the future, based on what the scientific consensus is, the problem will be in the hundreds of millions and much more severe.”
On taking action:
I think it’s very important that we take action today to recognize that we are making a very significant change to the chemical constituency of the atmosphere and oceans. One that is almost impossible to reverse…
And where you could really feel some emotion:
If you go 20, 30, 50 years in the future, what do you say to your kids or your grandkids? It’s almost, like, scientists have all said that these bad things are going to happen, it’s, like 97 percent… So, to say to your kids or grandkids, like, ‘Did nobody tell you?’
No, everyone was telling us. ‘
So why didn’t you do anything?’ What’s the answer?
…I think it’s very important that we do something.
