SolarCity (SCTY)

[Wenche]

Bloomberg feature: Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is preparing Saudi Arabia for the end of oil.

Sample quote:

"Prince Mohammed picks up the questioning: “How close is Saudi Arabia to a financial crisis?”

Today it’s much better, Al-Sheikh says. But “if you’d asked me exactly a year ago, I was probably on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.” Then he tells a story that no one outside the kingdom’s inner sanctum has heard. Last spring, as the International Monetary Fund and others were predicting Saudi Arabia’s reserves could stake the country for at least five years of low oil prices, the prince’s team discovered the kingdom was rapidly becoming insolvent. At last April’s spending levels, Saudi Arabia would have gone “completely broke” within just two years, by early 2017, Al-Sheikh says. To avert calamity, the prince cut the budget by 25 percent, reinstated strict spending controls, tapped the debt markets, and began to develop the VAT and other levies. The burn rate on Saudi Arabia’s cash reserves—$30 billion a month through the first half of 2015—began to fall.

Al-Sheikh finishes his fiscally mortifying report. “Thank you,” the prince says."

A must read IMO, if you are interested in understanding the developement of oil.

 

[jhm]

BTW, those of you who are interested in oil, I post most of my oil thoughts on the Shorting Oil thread and would love to have a discussion of Prince Mohammed there.

 

[doggusfluffy]

Republicans Are Warming Up to Renewable Energy

Wind and solar farms are often built on farmland, which is typically flat, cheap and treeless. That has provided rental income for farmers and created a groundswell of construction jobs. Wind and solar companies employed nearly 300,000 people in the U.S. in 2015, roughly four times more than the coal industry. All of the top 10 wind-energy producing congressional districts are represented by Republicans, according to The American Wind Energy Association.

 

[gigglehertz]

Also, remember, SolarCity also has a tiered executive incentive package that implies the stock could be worth ~ $40 billon. I'll try to find a link to the document a bit later.

Note to any journalists looking for a topic to write about: There have been very few articles published about this, so it's a bit hard to find.

SolarCity's Rive Gets $77 Million Grant Just Like Musk at Tesla

"Rive has ten years to earn as many as 3 million stock options with an exercise price of $48.97 according to the filing. He can do so by achieving pairs of goals, with half tied to SolarCity’s stock price and half tied to operational goals such as increasing customers, and lowering the cost of generating solar wattage. Every time he achieves a pair, he earns one-tenth of the options.

...Rive hasn’t yet earned any of his options, according to SolarCity’s proxy. While the company has achieved two operational goals, it needs to bring its stock price to $84.07 before he earns one-tenth of the options. SolarCity closed at $33.87 on Thursday. Rive will only receive all the options if he achieves all operational goals and the company rises to $400 per share."

 

[Jack6591]

Earth Day: We're not doomed (Opinion) - CNN.com

Happy Earth Day.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Bloomberg and CNBC guests keep touting US high yield as the place to be right now. I know nothing of finance, but I interpret this to mean the return vs real risk is very high relative to things like treasuries or whatever. SCTY ABS offerings fall into this category, no? Therefore if all else remains the same we could expect to see ABS costs drift slightly downward as the market adjusts?

Basically, I'm taking this as a sign that everyone saw inflated cost in Jan/Feb and we should see costs moderate in the next few ABS offerings. Is that rational?

Sounds like there should be a LOT of ABS coming down the line, so I'd like to set a level of expectation in my mind before the costs are announced.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

SolarCity's Rive Gets $77 Million Grant Just Like Musk at Tesla

"Rive has ten years to earn as many as 3 million stock options with an exercise price of $48.97 according to the filing. He can do so by achieving pairs of goals, with half tied to SolarCity’s stock price and half tied to operational goals such as increasing customers, and lowering the cost of generating solar wattage. Every time he achieves a pair, he earns one-tenth of the options.

...Rive hasn’t yet earned any of his options, according to SolarCity’s proxy. While the company has achieved two operational goals, it needs to bring its stock price to $84.07 before he earns one-tenth of the options. SolarCity closed at $33.87 on Thursday. Rive will only receive all the options if he achieves all operational goals and the company rises to $400 per share."

Glad to know some journalist read my post.

 

[jhm]

I'm excited about Tesla's new pricing for Powerpacks, $47k or $470/kWh. This is comparable to the $3000 price on a 6.4 kWh Powerwall. We'll have to wait and see if the Powerwall price stick as they may change that too.

My hope is that both Powerpack and Powerwalls will be priced at the same $/kWh. I believe such pricing avoids giving utilities a clear scale advantage over residents who own Powerwall. Utilities will be more motivated to innovate around aggregated storage if there is not a significant price difference per kWh. So this would be really good for SolarCity.

I think it may be more strategic for Tesla to favor Powerwalls over Powerpacks. The more residential ratepayers have Powerwall, the more it forces utilities to buy into Powerpacks as well. Some utilities may want to drag their feet and keep building out peak power plants. But when solar owners are fully armed with Powerwall, it shifts issues on the footdraggers. They either need to get with distributed battery aggregation or buy their own Powerpack, but in either case it become harder to argue for a new gas peaker.

BTW a 1 MW / 2MWh system Tesla prices at $1.2M. So $1.2/W plus installation costs. I think this is still competitive with a gas peaker. Tied with utility solar, the levelized cost is about $200/MWh. Gas peakers have levelized costs in range of $180 to $270 per MWh. But batteries have faster response time and can take surplus load to enable better utilization of baseload capacity. So at a comparable levelized cost batteries are the better value. So Tesla may be pricing Powerpacks low enough to compete with new gas peakers, but not so low as to leave money on the table.

 

[renim]

the commercial sized units will tend to always have a significant discount compared to consumer sized units for a number of reasons, even if the they are both bought by an entity buying bulk.

1 BMS cost is based on series of cells, a 400Volt BMS is the same whether it is for 2kWh, 20kWh, 200kWh or 2MWh (although the burnoff resister will be different)

2 Cooling, the larger the system, the more cunning the cooling system can be deployed, the lower the cost per kWH throughput. (Ie sea container with drip water vs alternatives etc) (this may also only be primarily visible on a lifetime throughput basis)

3 packaging, a pancake packaging is more expensive than a loaf, particularity as it relates to the surface material used.

4 customer 'support' this is the big one, all else being equal 1 customer is cheaper than 1000 customers to support. (and a 1000 customers provides so much room for 'value' adding)

I think the item no. 4 (customer support) is both the largest and most opaque to quantify. My gut feel is that it will account for about 25% of the cost difference between the small vs large packs.

in countries like Japan most of the solar PV is non domestic, ALL those are required to have battery. The supply market is already quite large and scaled for these products

 

[renim]

on the lighter side

Peabody, SunEdison and Chesapeake walked into a bar....

 

[doggusfluffy]

on the lighter side

Peabody, SunEdison and Chesapeake walked into a bar....

Into 3 horizontal bars that is...

What about closing the Tesla circle with SolarCity and this new NY utility cooperation deal. If you own a Tesla car AND a SolarCity connection to the grid you can also rent part of your car battery, say after dark or via scheduling your calendar syncing back to the grid as another value add service.

 

[Jack6591]

U.S. Senate Passes Stalled Energy Bill Without Solar NEM Amendment :: Solar Industry

I am pissed off that congress did not stand up for Amendment 3120. Regulatory capture continues to define our political system. Bernie Sanders just earned my vote.

 

[Jack6591]

King Introduces Bill to Promote Personal Energy Independence | Angus King | U.S. Senator for Maine

Personal-Energy-Independence should be a right.

 

[doggusfluffy]

U.S. Senate Passes Stalled Energy Bill Without Solar NEM Amendment :: Solar Industry

I am pissed off that congress did not stand up for Amendment 3120. Regulatory capture continues to define our political system. Bernie Sanders just earned my vote.

Lets hope Obama can throw some weight around and get this cleaned up with veto threat and ninja-like quiet effectiveness.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/o...=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

The Obama administration has said it would veto the House bill.

Bipartisan legislation always involves compromise. But unless the conference bill improves on the Senate and House versions, this legislation could end up accelerating climate change.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

U.S. Senate Passes Stalled Energy Bill Without Solar NEM Amendment :: Solar Industry

I am pissed off that congress did not stand up for Amendment 3120. Regulatory capture continues to define our political system. Bernie Sanders just earned my vote.

This sucks, lets hope Barry O vetoes. With NY moving forward and many states likely to follow, all SCTY needs is for grandfathering of net metering rates. I'm not an expert, but I think that's absolutely crucial to taking the next step where these ABS offerings can happen more regularly and at a lower cost.

 

[doggusfluffy]

Can N.Y. solar-electric deal recharge U.S. green-energy effort?

“That’s exactly what I was referencing,” Rive said recently of his bid for a deal with utilities. “The solar industry and the utility industry can come up with solutions that work for everyone and that allow for a good transition, one that gets us to a large scale that actually helps the grid and at the same time helps the utility. It’s possible to do it.”

Things to know on a ballot measure to end NV Energy monopoly

The regulated monopoly model has emerged over the past century as the state sought to make it worth companies' while to bring expensive electrical infrastructure to Nevada, but critics say the model is outdated as it becomes cheaper to generate energy and as renewable energy sources become more mainstream.

The initiative petition would enshrine in the Nevada Constitution the right for customers to choose their energy provider and to produce their own power to sell to others. It directs the Nevada Legislature to pass laws authorizing an open, competitive electricity market by mid-2023.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

FSLR reports on Wednesday, SCTY next Tuesday. Should be an interesting stretch!

 

[doggusfluffy]

You're telling me. I'm curious to see what ends up in the Energy Omnibus package regarding NEM since it seems like the country is paying attention to the election politics and not this legislation.

Apparently there are some unexpected new features to these new Silevo designed panels.
D.C. Public Housing Buildings Will Get Solar Panels as Part of Sustainability Project

On Saturday, DCHA announced that energy company SolarCity will place panels on the buildings, located across the city, which will produce tax credits.

 

[spacekadet]

Was there any news bringing SCTY down today?

 

[Ulmo]

Bloomberg: "YINGLI aims for 2017 start of 6GW solar cell project". (Stock ticker YGE?)

Currently, largest solar cell plant in world is listed at 0.85GW in Wikipedia. But that doesn't mean much: there's so much planned for installation right now, that what is planned vs. what is installed is totally lopsided, and so far, most of the plans I've seen have fallen through.