In this episode of energywakeup I am joined by Jon Abe the CEO of SunWealth. Sunwealth is a solar start up based in Boston Massachusetts focused on financing small commercial and nonprofit solar projects. The innovation at sunwealth is getting new capital into solar by educating them about the small C&I market.

In our conversation Jon tells you about his work to grow a partner network for scaling and partnering with a corporate investor to fund the business. Jon is a solar veteran that made the jump to a startup and is looking to do great things. This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at SolarWakeup Live Boston.

Make sure to catch previous episode on your favorite podcast platform, episodes with the director of renewable energy at Massachussets DOER, the CEO of Sunpower, Former FERC Chairman and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Join us on January 31st in New York and look out for future events across the Country.

Make sure to catch previous episode on your favorite podcast platform, episodes with

Mike Judge from Mass DOER

Jon Wellinghoff on the DOE NOPR

Sunpower’s Tom Werner

In this episode of energywakeup Yann is joined by Senator Boncore, the Massachusetts State Senator representing a large part of Boston and Cambridge. He is the sponsor of the net metering cap increase bill that would raise the cap by 5% across the board, clearing a large amount of backlog for SREC II projects.

Senator Boncore provides valuable insights on where the policy is going and how it may or may not progress. This interview was recorded at SolarWakeup Live Boston, which means that your competition that attended the event already has this valuable information.

Join us on December 6th in DC and look out for future events across the Country.

Make sure to catch previous episode on your favorite podcast platform, episodes with

Mike Judge from Mass DOER

Jon Wellinghoff on the DOE NOPR

Sunpower’s Tom Werner are now available

MA DOER has released the initial block procurement with a 100MW RFP ahead of the resolution of the 201 petition case which could increase the cost of solar modules significantly

The MA distribution companies, that make up the SMART program, have selected CLEAResult as the administrator and the initial bidder conference will occur on November 17th, 2017

DOER has issued the final regulations and submitted them to the DPU to enact the tariff rules. DOER has requested the tariff to be created by June 1st, 2018 but the process is ongoing

The regulations from DOER and the RFP are meant to be final, however if the 201 case severely impacts the results of the program, DOER reserves the ability to make changes

Developers are looking at their own situation for bidding strategy. Some bidders are considering submitting projects meant for SREC II as NEM cap increases seem unlikely and other bidders have modules reserved without 201 impact

Live from MDV-SEIA's Solar Focus Conference in Washington DC, I speak with Tom Matzzie, CEO of CleanChoice Energy. CleanChoice is a retail energy retailer that sells clean energy to homeowners and businesses across 9 states.

As a market participant, CleanChoice can create the products that can revolutionize solar development across markets, even outside of community solar regulations. CleanChoice is the largest developer of community solar in Maryland and working on a project in Brooklyn.

Tom is a politics veteran that once live tweeted a retired CIA director's conversation with a reporter while on a train. This is a great conversation for anyone that works in solar because you need to know more about power markets than you do now.

YANN BRANDT: Absolutely so we wanted to have you on because on September 28th; energy secretary Perry proposed a rule for final action to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, as we will refer to it. Under the proposal and I quote “FERC will impose rules on the Commission-- will impose rules to the approved ISOs and RTOS to ensure that certain reliability and resilience attributed of electric generation resources are fully valued”. Can you translate this for us?

JON WELLINGHOFF: Well it's actually a mischaracterization and misinterpretation by the secretary of energy. I mean first of all he issued it in a letter as a directive to FERC. He directed FERC to issue the rule based upon the language that he submitted to them in his proposed notice of rulemaking NOPR and the thing that I guess the secretary forgot to read in the federal Power Act-- you know he was acting under. I'm going to forget the sections here. I think it was 403 at the federal Power Act Subsection B if you read subsection C, he finds that the jurisdiction for the determination of whether or not this rule goes forward-- what happens to this rule and whether it's appropriate is entirely within the purview of FERC. So, what that means is he issued in essence an extra-- what I would call an extra Vilas order. An extra Vilas order means that in essence he issued something that he had no authority to issue and direct it to FERC. The Secretary of Energy has no statutory authority whatsoever to issue a directive to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is an independent body, independent regulatory body with five commissioners who are all nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and so as such; now the only authority that Secretary of Energy has is this extremely limited authority to propose a rule to FERC which he did do but again in language it seemed as if he was directing them to do something which he did not do which he does not have that authority. That is sort of procedural structure of it so once it goes over to FERC as a proposal then it's like any other proposal. That's like I could submit a proposal to FERC, you could submit proposal to FERC, anybody could and once FERC assumes jurisdiction by opening the docket, opening those proposed rulemaking which they did do; they did utilize the Secretary's language in that proposed rulemaking as the proposal that comments would be made up to. But once that is done FERC has the complete authority to reject it, to modify it, to amplify it, to do anything that they deem to be appropriate in the context of their rulemaking authority and their rulemaking authority of course is not unlimited. It's not without boundaries. FERC administrative a procedure act and in doing so they have to ensure that the rules that they promulgate are based upon substantial evidence of record. So, they have to take up evidence into the record which they're doing now based upon comments that are being submitted. I submitted comments along with the seven other former commissioners including I think three or four other former chairs of FERC asking the rule be rejected, the proposed rule be rejected basically but again FERC will take these comments in and then they'll make a decision as to what to do. So that's the whole procedural aspect but now the substantive part of it if we want to talk about the substance of what secretary Perry was proposing substantively, that gets a little bit more difficult because on its face what the (05.03) the secretary Perry said over says is that anything that has a 90-day fuel source and organized wholesale market and they were looking at nearly the ISOs and RTOs is not outside of those areas and there's only six of them that are under Burke's jurisdiction and there are large parts of the country that does not have an organized source of marketing including most of the western United States and most of the southeastern part—

In this episode I speak with Meghan Nutting, a solar veteran that has worked in policy roles at SolarCity and Sunnova over the past decade.

Meghan is running for the State Legislature in the very powerful 5th district. The current legislator in this district is the Speaker of the House, Crisanta Duran. This is a safe democratic seat which leads the winner of the primary to likely take general election.

As an advocate, I see a big need for more solar pros like Meghan to run for office, electric coop boards and other appointments. Having solar leaders in the discussion yields more expertise that leads to great policy.

You can help Meghan win her primary. She's been raising money and you can donate on her website, www.meghannutting.com. You can also lend your time and energy by contacting friends that live in Denver or make phone calls for her campaign.

Follow her on twitter @meghannutting

Donate to the campaign www.meghannutting.com

Tom Werner joined SunPower as employee number 35 and became the CEO in 2003. Since going public in 2005, Tom has led the company through the solar industry to where it is today. With 1,100 employees in the US and operations around the world.

With the 201 petition at the top of mind, I ask Tom about the exclusion SunPower is asking the ITC for and why he thinks First Solar asked for tariffs to be implemented when they were aleady exempt.

It’s difficult to get public company CEOs to open up but I saw a long term vision come out from Tom as we discuss where solar goes from here and the impact it can have across the world.

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Yann is joined by AriSEIA’s Lucy Mason. Lucy is the executive director of Arizona’s State Chapter, a republican and former Chair of the Water and Energy Committee in the State House of Representatives in Arizona.

Arizona has been the battleground for solar net metering for many years and Lucy has recently joined a settlement. We talk about how solar can speak to republicans and the mutual benefits to both sides. This is the last in the conversations with State Chapter directors.

Live from the International Trade Commission with Tony Clifford of Standard Solar. We speak at the end of the solar industry's response to the 201 petitions while Commissioners continue to ask questions about market elasticity and impact on solar jobs.

Live from the Trade Commission with Abby Hopper of SEIA to talk about the solar industry's reaction on the 201 petitioners presentation and response to the Commissioners' questions.