Thứ Ba, 28 tháng 4, 2020

This is your SolarWakeup for April 28th, 2020

Talking Solar(Wakeup) Live. SolarWakeup Live! The podcast is back. A returning guest in Tom Matzzie joins me for the first episode of the relaunch. This is a straight to tape conversation about solar, power markets and politics. Tom plays in all three sandboxes and he’s really good at them. He points to the erosion in commercial power demand and the nuances of those contracts, definitely something to watch. Please find the podcast on Apple Podcast and subscribe and rate 5 stars. If you have interesting guests that want to talk solar, regulations, finance and climate tech, send them my way.

The Resi Market Fragmentation. With the Q1 PV leaderboard out in public, manufacturers are taking their moment in the sun. This time Q Cells took that top spot in resi modules with market share in the 20’s. The fragmentation in every other segment is also very real except for the duopoly in the inverter market. Software is a segment in the market that has attracted enormous investment and almost every installer uses something but the interesting thing is that none of the platforms are getting any real traction taking share. In the latest poll, we saw over 10 software platforms mentioned for use by installers. Pricing for software is as different as it is in modules. In the ongoing solar module index, the above mentioned Q Cells modules have a price range of 15% between installers for the same module. The are 3 spots left in the initial batch for residential installers looking to learn more about how their module pricing matches up.

Buy The Dip. Large investors in solar assets are frothing at the mouth for the buying opportunity which may have already come and gone. The same is true for hedge funds buying stocks and private equity firms looking to buy companies. Prices are going to be much more attractive in a space that many passed on because they weren’t sure it was going to be sustainable. Watching the solar industry’s resilience now makes everyone look at the fundamental strength of the market and consumer. Solar has a product market fit while also achieving product market cost fit and that’s the trifecta. Look at my point above about software. The segment is completely fragmented but new entrants into the US space that have achieved great scale overseas (and lessons learned) like OpenSolar are providing user friendly and robust software at no cost to solar installers. Their CEO, Birchy, is a good friend of mine and he knows what it takes to build the business as a founder and CEO of Sungevity. Hard to imagine that installers aren’t going to give the free product a few looks.

My Bullish Take. I am increasingly optimistic that the consumer behavior is going to get back to where we were with a potential increase in adoption with a definite increase of interest in solar. Putting solar on your house fits with the mold of being stuck in the home more than before. My bullishness goes further than that in three parts. First, the solar salesforce is going to be able to meet with more customers and be geographically separated from the company. This means you can live in Iowa and sell solar in California while also meeting with two or three times as many customers in any given day. This will lower acquisition costs in a big way. Second, building departments aren’t going to be in person for the foreseeable future and likely never go back to the slower way of doing things. This means that the speed from sale to installation could be cut in half or even better improving cash flows and standardization in the industry. Lastly, remote inspections are likely to gain traction across the board. An inspector goes to the site to ‘see’ what is done. For solar, a geotagged video with accompanying images can let the inspector do this much faster without the cost of driving. I’m hopeful that the days of waiting all day for the inspector could be gone for good. 

Opinion

Best, Yann

The post This is your SolarWakeup for April 28th, 2020 appeared first on SolarWakeup.com.


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