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Marlette: Capitalism shines after solar sham fails
I do not know if the moon is in the Seventh House. I do not know if Jupiter has aligned with Mars. And I don’t know nothin’ about peace guiding planets or love steering stars.
But I do know this. Because Floridians rejected the big, fat scam known as Amendment 1 about a month ago, an age of capitalistic, job-creating, consumer-empowering, free market solar energy has already started to dawn here in the Sunshine State.
Looks like JN was right! Screw leasing!
Tesla giving up residential solar leasing to be in the Florida
‘sunshine’ market – and it might be the company’s future
John Fitzgerald Weaver- 24 hours ago
State of Florida law states only an approved and regulated electric utility is allowed to sell electricity to the public. The 1988 court case, PW Ventures, Inc. v. Nichols, clarified this position. With Tesla’s SolarCity announcing that they’ll service customers of Duke Energy and the Orlando Utilities Commission in the greater Orlando area, they’ll have to abandon their ‘solar lease’ model in Florida – a state with no solar incentives.
In this model, Tesla owns the solar power system and takes all incentives, then sells the homeowner discounted electricity in a 20-year contract. With a population greater than 20 million people, the third largest state is a ripe opportunity – and maybe a laboratory.
If you’re considering solar, get a verbal quote via a customer assessment from multiple contractors at understandsolar.com. Tweet me if you’d like feedback on quote. We receive a commission for this.
The solar lease model allows a third party, neither the homeowner nor the local electrical utility, to own a solar power system and sell the electricity to the homeowner. This model has flourished in the United States, peaking in 2014 with 72% of all residential sales. The same report also shows that the leasing model is slowing – and it is predicted to be below 50% of all installs in 2017.
If the solar leasing model does go sideways – shrinking in total size from 2016 and on – there will be significant consternation at Tesla (34% of all leases), Vivint Solar (12%) and Sunrun (10%).
If the trends of a report put out by EnergySage, “Solar Marketplace Intel Report, Data from H2 2015 to H1 2016”, are to be believed then the lease companies ought be evolving models as fast as they can: 63% of EnergySage users preferred ownership to a loan – but a full 99% of who went on to buy, actually got a loan or paid cash versus a lease. These market forces are already happening and Tesla, being the largest player in this field, saw it. SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive already announced that the company expects to reduce the number of leases while loans and cash purchases increase. Multiple loan products have been tested – with the MyPower program being canceled and a new, simplified program implemented. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also commented that SolarCity will continue this trend under Tesla.
That might mean the Florida market is not an aberration, but actually the future.
One of the main challenges of solar power is the large up front cost. As electricity consumers, we’ve come to expect low monthly bills from all of our centralized utility companies. It was always the job of the large investors to take on the risk of billions. Now solar power lets a consumer purchase 30 years of energy up front – but at a price. In 2008, a solar system that could bring a $150/month electricity bill to $0 cost $65,000. In came players like SolarCity – finance companies standing right behind solar installers, who said they would front the cash for the solar system if they could own the rights to your roof and sell you cheap, clean electricity. By 2015, third parties installed 1.4GW (about 200,000 systems) on residential homes.
What has changed from the heady days of 2008-2014, the solar lease golden years, is that the $65,000 solar system of 2008 now costs $28,000 – a much more reasonable and accessible number for a large number of people in the USA. The result of this is beginning to show in the financials at Tesla – according to the 2016 3rd Quarter report, “Revenue from solar energy systems under long-term loan arrangements increased by $9.2 million, or 101%, for the three months ended September 30, 2016” and “Sales of solar energy systems and components increased by $37.8 million, or 192%, for the three months ended September 30, 2016, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2015.” Departments growing at 100 and 200% get a lot of attention on Wall Street, even if during this time period Tesla deployed 189MW worth of solar power – about $576M worth.
So just maybe, the Florida market announcement might represent a significant step taken by Tesla that represents the next phase of the residential solar power industry: large scale market adoption directly by homeowners due to the increasingly strong financials of solar power. If this is the case, then we are in for a lot of installations.
Solar City/Tesla going into Florida.After the Election.
Come on Jim. Our turn?
India Just Unveiled the World’s Largest Solar Plant
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/india-unveils-world-largest-solar-power-plant-161129101022044.html
.With 2.5 million individual solar panels across more than 10.36 square kilometers, India's new plant is capable of powering 150,000 homes.
.The facility puts India on track to be the world's third-biggest solar market by next year, joining several other countries on the path to creating a fossil-fuel free future.
Solar as far as the eye can see
Images of India’s Kamuthi Solar Power Project have just been unveiled, giving people across the globe a look at the planet’s largest solar plant. The facility is equipped with 2.5 million individual solar panels across more than 10.36 square kilometers (4 square miles) in Kamuthi in Tamil Nadu, and construction on it was completed in just 8 months.
The plant adds 648 megawatts to the country’s current energy capacity and is capable of powering 150,000 homes. It is a huge step forward in India’s plans to make solar power accessible to more of its citizens. By 2022, the country hopes to produce solar power for 60 million homes — a goal aligned with the government’s vision to generate 40 percent of India’s power from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
With this new plant and its continued dedication to sustainable energy, India is expected to become the world’s third-biggest solar market by next year, trailing after China and the United States.
The End of Fossil Fuels
India’s is one of many nationwide initiatives to minimize, if not completely eliminate, the use of fossil fuels.
Economics to Keep Wind and Solar Energy Thriving With Trump
November 22, 2016 — 6:01 PM CST
Updated on November 23, 2016 — 9:10 AM CST
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-23/economics-will-keep-wind-and-solar-energy-thriving-under-trump
Tesla, SolarCity Power Entire Island With Solar + Batteries
Lorraine Chow
http://www.ecowatch.com/tesla-solarcity-tau-samoa-island-2104960096.html
Ta'u, an island in American Samoa, has turned its nose at fossil fuels and is now almost 100 percent powered with solar panels and batteries thanks to technology from the newly combined Tesla and SolarCity.
Tesla Motors officially owns SolarCity: Two Elon Musk companies become one
Ooooo weee!
Elon Musk Says Tesla's New Solar Shingles Will Cost Less Than a Regular Roof
by Kevin Lui November 18, 2016, 3:35 AM EST
http://fortune.com/2016/11/18/elon-musk-tesla-solarcity-solar-roof/
Is that utility scale, or home solar?
The myth around Australia’s “cheap” energy
By Giles Parkinson on 14 November 2016
Cheap Energy. It is often stated as one of Australia’s great economic advantages, and something that will be ruined by the pursuit of climate change policies and clean energy.
But who in Australia actually does enjoy cheap energy? Households and most business consumers don’t: they face the some of the highest electricity costs in the world, thanks to the imposts put upon them by network operators and the oligopoly of fossil fuel generators.
The irony is that even brown coal generators such as Northern power station and Hazelwood say that wholesale electricity prices in Australia are not high enough to justify their continued operation.
As energy Hugh Saddler, writes in his latest monthly report from Pitt & Sherry and The Australia Institute, Australia’s wholesale electricity prices – in real terms – have hardly budged in the last few decades.
And one of the principal reasons is the impact of renewable energy, which have helped to bring down wholesale prices from where they would otherwise be.
This graph (above) illustrates his argument. On the left are the average wholesale prices for all states since the creation of the National Electricity Market nearly 20 years ago. Note the historically high South Australian wholesale prices, when the state relied only on brown coal and gas.
On the right are the average prices for Victoria and NSW only, compared to the average retail price in those states. As is clear, retail prices have doubled – thanks mostly to the more than doubling on network charges and higher margins for the retailers, while wholesale prices have remained subdued.
Saddler uses NSW and Victoria as examples because these are two states with the most ageing coal infrastructure, and where coal generators are likely to retire over the next decade.
The first to go will be Hazelwood in Victoria, which will close by next April, with others expected to follow in both states.
In trying to estimate what will happen when those power stations close, Saddler uses a real example of the Eraring power plant, which has as significant role in the NSW market, as Hazelwood does in Victoria, and which was closed for repairs in October.
Since early 2014, Saddler notes, Eraring has been supplying about one quarter of the average minimum grid demand (so-called “base load”) in NSW, which is about the same proportion as Hazelwood supplies to Victoria.
Over the first ten days of October, the four 720MW turbo-alternators at Eraring were progressively shut down for scheduled power station maintenance. The graph above shows that NSW spot prices went up sharply on the day Eraring’s last machine was shut down on October 10. Prices have stayed high since then.
Saddler says the table also shows an interesting inverse relationship between NSW wholesale prices (in pink) and wind generation across the three mainland states in southern Australia (in green). “Note the almost exact relationship in timing between changes in wind generation and changes in spot price.”
The strength of this relationship is noteworthy, as contributions to meeting the supply shortfall have come not from wind, but from increased output from the other NSW black coal power stations, especially Vales Point, increased imports from Victoria and Queensland, increased hydro generation, and slightly reduced demand.
“Even though wind generation is a small contributor to NSW supply, it has a surprisingly large effect on wholesale prices, even in NSW, where at present wind generators supply less than 3% of total consumption within the state. This is the so- called merit order effect.
“The ability of wind generation to reduce spot prices is undoubtedly a benefit to electricity consumers.”
But he notes that in the longer run, however, this presents operational challenges to the NEM as presently designed.
One of the issues is about the long term trend of wholesale prices. Because of excess supply – prices in both NSW and Victoria states have been below the long run cost of new supply.
This is crucial because many coal generators will need to be retired in coming years, so new capacity will need to be installed from somewhere.
“If the closure of Hazelwood increases average wholesale prices by $20 per MWh it will not be a calamitous impost caused by misguided policies,” Saddler writes, pointing to the criticism of renewable energy policies.
“It will be a long postponed move to what many economists, and others, would see as an efficient level of prices in the wholesale electricity market.”
Saddler points to the APGT study which say any new generation will be more expensive than current wholesale prices, but as Innes Willox from the Australian Industry Group pointed out last month, that report overestimated the costs of wind and solar, which are clearly now the cheapest forms of new generation.
One on One we win!
Open challenge to Coward Crybaby coal boss!
1 month now no answer!
Real fraud going on is denial of climate science. As for "subsidies", Tesla gets pennies on dollar vs coal. How about we both go to zero?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2016
Less coal fosters more jobs in clean energy
Eric Pasi, Innovative Power Systems 3:10 p.m. CDT October 31, 2016
INTERESTING EXCERPT FROM ARTICLE!
As I remember Solar has like a 90% approval rating.
And Chuck Grassly said Trump will have a fight if he messes with his wind power.
Soon we will be so cheap we can say FK the subsidies.
AU Unions call to move to Clean Energy
Australian unions call for 'just transition' from coal-generated electricity
ACTU seek federal body to manage move to a clean energy economy and to support workers and communities that rely on fossil fuel-related jobs
Australian unions have thrown their weight behind a transition away from coal-generated electricity, calling for a new statutory authority to manage a “just transition”, supporting workers and communities that rely on fossil fuel-related jobs.
A policy discussion paper written by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said a planned closure of coal power stations – along with both a jobs and energy plan for the country – would “create a more prosperous and diversified economy”.
It called for an independent statutory body, Energy Transition Australia (ETA), to be created inside the environment and energy portfolio, which would be responsible for managing an orderly move to a clean energy economy.
A clean energy transition is already happening, but it is at risk
Alexander White
Read more
Ged Kearney, president of the ACTU, said the transition away from fossil fuels in the power sector was inevitable. “We’re not experts in climate change, but what’s obvious to the ACTU is they are going to close. They already are closing around us.”
The move comes days after the announcement of the closure of Australia’s dirtiest power station, Hazelwood in Victoria, with federal minister for environment and energy Josh Frydenberg attacking Labor and the Greens for attempting to plan the closure of coal around the country.
“I think there’s a lot of resistance to planning for this in Canberra,” said Kearney. “Our framework very squarely places responsibility on the federal government to come up with a national plan for the sake of the workers in this industry. They’re constantly whining and complaining when the states do have plans but they’re not doing anything themselves.”
The ACTU discussion paper, titled “Sharing the challenges and opportunities of a clean energy economy”, acknowledged Australia’s current emission cuts planned for 2030 would need to be strengthened in order to meet commitments made in Paris to keep global warming “well below” 2C.
The paper said “it is widely agreed that Australia will need to move towards net zero by 2050 if we are to play our part in global efforts to limit the impact of global warming”.
“Australian unions recognise that the transition of coal-fired power stations has been identified as crucial to achieving emissions reduction targets,” it said.
Hazelwood's closure was inevitable. So where was the transition plan?
Gay Alcorn
Gay Alcorn
Read more
The paper argues that while the country needs to ensure the transition happens, the costs of that transition should not fall predominantly on the shoulders of workers on those industries, but rather be equitably shared across society.
“The priority of any closures has to be the workers and the communities and the small businesses that rely on the flow-on effects from the stations.”
Kelly O’Shanassy from the Australian Conservation Foundation welcomed the ACTU’s paper. “The writing is on the wall that coal jobs are on the way out and there is really no future there. The unions are seeing that clearly and want to make sure workers and communities that rely on those jobs are looked after.
“For too long governments have wanted to ignore the transition and that’s made it worse. This change is happening and we need leadership.”
In order to manage a “just transition” effectively, the ACTU argued for a new statutory authority that would oversee:
the closure of Australia’s coal-fired power stations
an industry-wide multi-employer pooling and redeployment scheme for retrenched workers
A labour adjustment package that would support workers finding new jobs with job services, retraining, financial and personal support, and travel subsidies and relocation assistance
The ACTU said the body should also carefully study what new industries would best be located in what regions, and support those industries growing in areas affected by the closure of coal-related industries.
The paper pointed out that the number of jobs in the clean energy sector was projected to reach 24 million by 2030. The US renewable energy sector had been growing quickly, the paper said, while Australian renewable jobs had declined. “This decline must be reversed,” the paper said.
Since most coal-related industries were located close together, the paper called for investment in coal-mining regions.
It cited research saying $88bn had been spent on adjustment packages following the closure of industries between 2000 and 2012. But it argued it was done in an ad hoc way, which needed to be better coordinated as the country transitions to clean energy.
The paper argues the transition should be funded by ending fossil fuel subsidies, introducing a carbon price, and from federal and state budgets.
The intervention from the ACTU marks a powerful coalition between the environment movement and the union movement that have traditionally been at odds.
Kearney said it had been a “long journey”.
What will fill the hole left by coal?
Read more
“Most people in the environment sector now realise that the union movement has never been opposed to dealing with climate change but our concerns were about looking after workers. It was a difference that we didn’t just sit down and talk through. Now there’s a great deal of understanding on both sides.”
On Monday 17 prominent Australians, spearheaded by the Australian Conservation Foundation presented Frydenberg with a “clean energy blueprint”. It urged the Turnbull government to extend and expand the national renewable energy target and create a market mechanism to govern an orderly phase-out of coal-fired power in Australia. That blueprint also called for a just transition.
Both moves come ahead of the government’s’ review of its Direct Action policy in 2017, as well as a review into the national energy market led by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel.
The Finkel review followed a political battle between the Turnbull government and state governments, with Turnbull launching a rhetorical assault on state-based renewable energy targets after a statewide power blackout in South Australia in September.
At least you should know what you are talking about when making your posting. You don't know the market. Yes we don't know exactly when we will move to storage. When the market price for storage comes down enough, almost everybody will move to storage. Yes storage will come. And I know that if I was going to install a system, it would have storage....
Crude oil price is down. The democrats have their plan. Anything too bad and they will filibuster in the Senate. We can obstruct too.. No blocking the Paris Climate Deal.
Listening to Al Franken last night made me feel better....
Solar energy amendment defeated,
TALLAHASSEE — With 99.5 percent of the state reporting, Florida voters have rejected one amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot.
Amendment No. 1, titled “Rights of Electricity Consumers Regarding Solar Energy Choice” received 50.78 percent Yes votes and 49.22 percent No votes.
Deutsche Bank sees South Australia at 95% renewables by 2025
By Giles Parkinson on 4 November 2016
Energy analysts at leading investment bank Deutsche Bank predict the state of South Australia could easily beat its aspirational target of 50 per cent renewables by 2025, reaching 85 per cent mark by 2020 and possibly as much ass 95 per cent by 2025.
The prediction is included in scenarios included in a new analysis of the soon-to-floated renewable energy company Tilt Renewables, a spin-off of New Zealand’s TrustPower.
Australian industry finally sees potential in wind and solar
By Giles Parkinson on 7 November 2016
It has taken years of fierce resistance and catastrophising about the supposed cost and economic impacts from the shift from fossil fuels, but it seems that Australian industry is finally waking up to the possibilities of wind and solar.
Australia’s debate about energy costs has constantly been framed in the light of reports that are either ignorant or deliberately pessimistic about the cost of renewable energy alternatives such as wind and solar.
Industrial solar installation. Image source: Todae Solar
But a whole series of events is now causing industry to think differently. One of these was the blackout in South Australia, widely blamed – for ideological and political purposes – on wind energy, but in fact a perfect illustration of how inefficient and unwieldy the grid and the old model of centralised generation had become.
Then there is the entering into force of the Paris climate agreement last Friday, some three or four years before expectations and at a fraction of the speed of the much narrower Kyoto Protocol that preceded it.
New research, highlighting the precarious state of both the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, the continuing records in monthly temperatures, and the rapidly closing window for action are putting on the pressure for quick action, something that will be reinforced in the international climate talks that begin this week in Marrakesh.
Industry recognises what’s at stake. As this slide from Innex Willox, the head of the Australian Industry Group shows, the Paris climate agreement means business and will require Australia reaching zero net emission before 2050.
If you remember, Australia’s bipartisan target once was for an 80 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050, but the Abbott government dumped that when it sacked the carbon price.
The Turnbull government hasn’t even thought yet how it can get to its modest interim target of a 26 per cent cut by 2030, let alone the reality of zero net emissions barely a decade later. Industry is not impressed.
Then there is the growing reality that Australia’s coal fleet is starting to close down and will need replacing. One major factor driving this is that Australia’s fossil fuel plants can no longer continue at current prices. Some in industry and the conservative commentariat have blamed the closure of the Northern brown coal power station on government policies, but Alinta spent a lot of effort trying to get industry to sign contracts to take its output at a cost of $50-$60/MWh. No one took up the offer, so it closed.
In Victoria last week, the most powerful symbol of Australia’s high polluting coal generation sector, the Hazelwood brown coal power station in Victoria, was slated for closure because it is too old and is no longer economic to run at current power prices.
Now it is dawning on industry that there is no way they can avoid the closure of the remaining fleet of coal-fired power plants. Much of it has to be retired within a decade or two, so best that they investigate the alternatives.
And that leads us to the last and the most important factor – that the Australian debate about energy costs has mostly been framed in the light of reports that are either ignorant or deliberately pessimistic about the cost of renewable energy alternatives such as wind and solar.
The presentation by Willox provides perhaps the clearest sign yet that Australian industry has been either blind to, ignorant, or duped about the price of renewables, solar and wind in particular.
First is his admission that recent price spikes have been driven by costly gas. Second is the admissions that, as this graph above shows, most of the information relied on by industry and government have put all alternatives, such as wind and solar, at two to three times the cost of current power.
“If this slide represents the future, why would they ever reinvest in Australia?” Willox said.
One reason they might is that everybody is in the same boat. Here’s Willox: “If this is what it costs to produce low- or zero-carbon energy, and the world is moving in that direction, then the high cost of new energy in Australia might not mean a competitive disadvantage – assuming the countries that matter are moving at roughly the same time.”
Bravo, he is is finally learning from the likes of Ross Garnaut who have spoken at length of the magnificent energy and economic opportunity Australia has in renewables.
“A second answer is that the projections may be wrong,” Willox says. “We could be pleasantly surprised by technological and commercial innovations that means new energy turns out to be cheaper than we thought.”
Yes, we could. As this next graph shows, those forecasts (now in green and gold stripes) have been beaten in Australia’s own top-start large scale renewable energy sector, and absolutely thrashed by experience elsewhere.
The Australian projections are some of the same ones we just looked at, now in green and gold stripes. The Australian actuals are in solid green, and represent the outcomes of the ACT wind auction and the ARENA large scale solar round.
The international actuals are in solid blue, and represent contract prices for the winning bidders in a wide range of auctions and procurement processes. For good measure, recent Australian wholesale prices and price futures are depicted at the far left.
In wind and solar, Willox notes, there is a yawning gap. Competitive wind projects in the United States, Mexico and Chile are being built for 4-6c/kWh – 4-5c/kWh cents less than the Australian projection. And they are dropping fast – solar by 50 per cent in a year, wind by 25 per cent.
“Solar is becoming genuinely cheap,” he says. The contracted prices in Abu Dhabi, Chile and Dubai for $A0.03-$A0.04 per kilowatt hour is below Australia’s own historical benchmark for cheap power.
“Even keeping the on-costs of networks and reliability in mind, these prices are extraordinary – and they keep happening, with new record lows reached every few months in 2016,“ he further noted.
And he might have added battery storage as well – although he did mention it as part of the reforms that are so desperately needed in Australia, along with demand response, so that Australia can develop a smart electricity system, rather than the dumb one it has relied along for so long.
Australia could reduce its costs dramatically – probably not as much as the Middle East, but certainly a lot lower than most forecasts. But, as Willox notes, it needs policy certainty – that will reduce the cost of finance which can influence one-third of the cost.
But as Tesla has demonstrated, the costs of battery storage can and will fall quickly. Their household offering has nearly halved in price per kilowatt hour in less than a year, and that is before the much anticipated gigafactory opens.
Willox was speaking about industry, which he notes has enjoyed prices of 4c/kWh. Consumers – households and most business – have had no such luxury and are paying nearly 10 times that much after the cost of the grid, retail margins and other add-ons are included.
Now, as Bruce Mountain has pointed out, those grid costs are already being challenged by solar and storage – with obvious ramifications for the future of the grid and centralised generation.
Battery storage at grid level is also shown to be much cheaper than grid upgrades and new wires, and for micro-grids it’s role as a cheaper alternative to diesel and gas plants, and with added security, is now being widely considered.
Indeed, if the various value proposals for battery storage are considered – time-shifting renewables, smoothing out renewable output, responding to peak demand, providing frequency and other ancillary services, and as a replacement for poles and wires – then the technology is probably well and truly in the market.
What needs to happen is for the rules to be changed. This is a reasonably complex issue as it is, made more challenging by the resistance and scare mongering by those technologies who will lose their market dominance – gas peaking plants, coal fired generators, retailers and network operators stuck in old business models.
But Willox is recognising some unavoidable truths. The need to de-carbonise is pressing. Australia’s electricity fleet needs to be renewed. Nuclear – as illustrated by the citizen jury response to the idea of nuclear waste storage – is not going to happen, new coal plants won’t be built, gas is a marginal option due to its own emissions and volatile fuel costs, and the best way to bring the costs of solar and wind down to the levels of coal is to accelerate their deployment, and the regulatory and policy changes that need to go with it, not hold it back.
That is a major step forward.
A Rigged System on the Verge of Collapse
Utilities v. the U.S. Taxpayer
Written by Jason Williams
Posted November 4, 2016
Four years ago, in a top-secret gathering in Colorado, the most powerful utility executives in the country met to hear warnings about a growing threat to their dominance over the U.S. energy markets: solar panels
Same can happen to us....
Billionaire Ron Baron: I could make 30-50 times my money on Tesla over next 15 years
WATCH THE VIDEO!
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/billionaire-ron-baron-tesla-elon-musk-electric-automaker.html
Billionaire buy-and-hold investor Ron Baron told CNBC on Friday he believes he can make 30 to 50 times his money on his investment in Tesla in the next 15 years.
He called Tesla "maybe the most interesting" company he's ever invested in over his 46 year career.
"I think in this investment from here in the next 15 years, we can make 30 to 50 times our money," said Baron on the sidelines of the annual Baron Investment Conference in New York City.
Baron owns about 1.5 million Tesla shares, valued at around $300 million. "That represents 1.5 percent of our assets," he said.
"The stock was $33 when we started to invest," he said. Tesla closed on Thursday at $187.42 per share. He said his average cost of buying the stock over more than three years is "over $200 now." Tesla's all-time high was around $280 per share in July 2015.
"[But] it's risky," the founder of Baron Capital told "Squawk Box." "Initially they have to prove the concept; then they got to prove they can make them; [and] they got to prove they can make them profitably."
"With Tesla, nobody wants you to succeed except for the people who buy their product," he said. "The car dealers don't want you to succeed because the [Tesla] cars don't need service. The unions don't want you to succeed because Tesla is remaking the way you make cars."
On Wednesday, Tesla said its planned merger with SolarCity would add $500 million to the electric automaker's balance sheet over the next three years, while contributing more than $1 billion in revenue next year.
Tesla Chairman and CEO Elon Musk — also chairman of the solar panel company and the largest shareholder of both companies — has been making the case for the $2.6 billion deal since it was announced in August.
Baron also talked up the deal on CNBC on Friday, calling it a necessity, because he believes that all vehicles will eventually be electric.
"If I'm right, there's a tremendous demand for electricity. Where do you get it from? The electricity grid is not growing. They are not building new power plants," he said.
Under that dynamic, he said Tesla has to buy SolarCity because it's "not going to have enough electricity for cars" otherwise. "The reason you're buying it is you are reinventing the electric grid. That's a bigger opportunity than cars."
Last week, Tesla said it earned an adjusted quarterly 71 cents per share, in only its second profitable quarter ever, compared with an expected loss of 54 cents per share. Third-quarter revenue also beat forecasts on record sales.
Ahead of Friday trading, Tesla shares were off 7.3 percent since reporting results.
Energy Slump Mars Exxon, Chevron Profit
Earnings fall by more than a third at America’s two largest oil producers while France’s Total turns up
{This trend will continue. My comment.}
http://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-slump-mars-exxon-chevron-profit-1477674956
Third-quarter earnings fell well below year-earlier levels at some of the world’s biggest oil companies, further evidence their businesses face a long road to financial recovery with crude trading around $50 a barrel.
While many energy companies sounded a note of optimism that the worst of the two-year oil price crash is over, quarterly profits disclosed this week by Exxon Mobil Corp. Chevron Corp., Statoil ASA and others generally were lower than a year ago. For the last 12 month stretch, earnings were among the lowest for the industry in more than 15 years.
Exxon, the world’s largest publicly-traded oil producer, reported a 38% decline in quarterly profit, its eighth straight quarter of year-over-year declines, as revenue slid more than analysts expected on a prolonged swoon in oil prices. Its third-quarter earnings fell to $2.65 billion, or 63 cents a share, from $4.24 billion, or $1.01 a share, a year earlier.
I'm wondering what the output is on the solar rooftops.......
Elon Musk solar roof presentation...
Tesla's big solar roof unveiling will happen on Friday
Danielle Muoio Oct. 25, 2016, 9:25 AM
Tesla has been hyping up its solar roof product for some time, and the official unveiling is finally near.
Tesla sent out the invitations to show its solar roof product on Tuesday morning. The event will occur at Universal Studios in Los Angeles on Friday at 7 p.m. PT. It will be livestreamed on Tesla's website.
Although the solar roof product was first brought up on SolarCity's second-quarter earnings call, there is no explicit mention of SolarCity in the invitation, though it does feature rooftop images.
On that earnings call, Musk said the solar roof will be "a fundamental part of achieving differentiated product strategy, where you have a beautiful roof. It's not a thing on the roof. It is the roof, which is a quite difficult engineering challenge and not something that is available anywhere else."
Musk has said the solar roof will be integrated with the new version of Tesla's at-home battery, the Powerwall 2.0, and Tesla's charger.
Tesla is in the process of buying SolarCity in a deal worth $2.6 billion. The merger vote is scheduled for November 17.
The proposed merger has faced criticism. Tesla has a lot to contend with in 2017 as it ramps up production for the Model 3, and would be adding SolarCity's $3+ billion in debt to its balance sheet.
Musk owns about 20% of SolarCity and is its chairman. Musk is also the cousin of SolarCity's CEO Lyndon Rive.
Tesla recently announced its pledge with Panasonic to produce solar cells at a manufacturing facility in Buffalo, New York on the condition that the Tesla-SolarCity merger passes. The Buffalo plant Tesla has chosen was originally meant to be a production facility for SolarCity.
The plant's initial solar panel production would center around the roof product SolarCity and Tesla have been teasing ahead of the merger vote, the Buffalo News reported in August.
I would never use SA as a source. Even with positive information...
The ELECTRIC REVOLUTION continues.
Hopefully powered by solar!
Audi just quit Le Mans to focus on Formula E
And dieselgate may have been partly to blame
by Sean O'Kane@sokane1 Oct 26, 2016, 10:24a
Audi is shaking up its motorsports program in a big way. The German car manufacturer announced this morning that it will be leaving the FIA World Endurance Championship — one of the premiere racing series and home to the 24 Hours of Le Mans —
Renewables Now Exceed All Other Forms Of New Power Generation
George Dvorsky
Today 12:30 PM
A new report put out by the International Energy Agency shows that renewable electricity capacity growth reached an all-time high in 2015, hitting the 153 gigawatt (GW) mark. That’s a 15 per cent increase from 2014. To put this figure into perspective, the total in renewables growth is equivalent to the total current power capacity of Canada. Incredibly, about half a million solar panels were installed each day around the world last year.
The lion’s share of this growth (about three-quarters worth) came in the form of new onshore wind and solar power plants. The IEA says that, for the first time, “renewables accounted for more than half of net annual additions to power capacity and overtook coal in terms of cumulative installed capacity in the world.” (By net capacity, the IEA is referring to new capacity minus retired capacity, such as old hydro or coal plants being taken offline.)
That last point bears repeating. Renewables in the form of solar and wind now account for more installed capacity than any other form of electricity, including coal. That’s huge, especially in consideration of the ambitious climate targets reached in Paris last year.
Reasons for the surge in renewables were attributed to supportive government policies and sharp reductions in the cost of solar and wind. Encouragingly, the IEA says these trends are likely to continue, and it’s projecting a 42 per cent increase in global renewable electricity capacity by 2021. Overall, the share of renewables in electricity generation will rise from 23 per cent in 2015 to a projected 28 per cent in 2021. That’s slightly over a quarter of the world’s total electricity need, so there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
“China remains the undisputable global leader of renewable energy expansion, representing close to 40 per cent of growth,” write the authors of the new report. China, which recently adopted a pro-environment policy, is concerned about ongoing desertification, rising sea levels and poor air quality. Last year, China installed wind turbines at a rate of two every hour.
The European Union and the United States made sizable advances last year as well, but the IEA says “Asia is the engine of renewable power capacity and growth”, adding that “In the next five years, [China] and India alone will account for almost half of global renewable capacity additions”.
If there was any doubt about the future of renewables, this report should answer any lingering concerns. And as the price of solar and wind continues to plummet, traditional forms of energy simply won’t be worth it — both fiscally and environmentally.
[color=gray][International Energy Agency][/color]
30,000 Solar Panels Installed Every Hour
October 26, 2016Energy Matters
30,000 solar panels will be installed every hour around the world over the next 5 years according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA has revised its forecasts out to 2021 after 500,000 solar panels were installed each day around the world last year. Wind power also grew at a rapid rate in 2015. In China alone, 48 wind turbines were installed every day.
The latest edition of the organisation’s Medium-Term Renewable Market Report predicts renewables growing 13% more between 2015 and 2021 than it did in the forecast last year. This would see global renewable electricity capacity increase by 42% (or 825 GW) by 2021.
The report says onshore wind generation costs are expected to plummet by a further 15% on average by 2021, while utility-scale solar PV costs may decline by another quarter
he more optimistic forecast is primarily due to improved market prospects in four key countries. This includes the USA, where a medium-term extension of the nation’s investment tax credit (ITC) was announced late last year.
Solar PV and onshore wind will lead the renewables charge, accounting for 75% of global renewable electricity capacity growth over the medium-term. Onshore wind will be the largest source of new renewable electricity generation, followed by solar PV, which will provide almost 40%.