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Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

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Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#4
There seems to be some disagreement on numbers in various reports. This article says:

> "Global spending on solar power, the IEA projects, will hit $382 billion this year. That’s more than $1 billion per day. Investment in oil production, meanwhile, is estimated to total $371 billion."

In contrast, this articles says:

> "The annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, authored by a group of nonprofits, including Rainforest Action Network, said banks provided $673 billion in finance to the fossil-fuel industry last year. Canadian banks are providing a rising share of the money, though U.S. lenders are still the dominant player."

https://www.barrons.com/articles/banks-financing-fossil-fuel...

The discrepancy could be that the latter includes coal and gas investment, while the former is just oil?

More solar is good news, but it'll have little if any effect on global fossil CO2 emissions, as demand for energy in the developing world is steadily approaching the levels seen in industrialized nations. Replacing fossil fuels with renewables on any short (decadal) timespan would require at least a 10X increase in renewable investment over today's levels.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#5

Who are the market leaders, where can one go to get domain knowledge?

oilprice.com and renewablesnow.com together provide a decent broad overview of latest current news on investments and projects in the overall energy sector.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#7
I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem finding impossible problems that could never be solved and would therefore render solar useless on a large scale. That profound lack of imagination could almost lead one to conclude that the naysayers had other axes to grind, and maybe it wasn't purely about clearing technical hurdles.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#8
Careful of the municipal utility bait and switch! Here in Idaho they recently adjusted the net metering credit to greatly decrease the value of solar energy.

They waited until there was a lot of solar adoption in the state, and then pulled the rug on solar owners under the guise of “making sure everyone pays their fair share”

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#9

Who are the market leaders, where can one go to get domain knowledge?

A lot of faceless funds. Utility-scale developments are usually built as a partnership between local utilities, a developer who acquires/leases land and builds the the site, and investors who buy the site and form a pricing agreement with the utilities. Sometimes the developer is also the investor. These are people who don't get out of bed for less than 8 digits.

Avantus is a large developer operating in the California/South West. You can look at their project partners for more. The developers require high touch relationships with local governments so they are very regional.

https://avantus.com/development

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#10

Careful of the municipal utility bait and switch! Here in Idaho they recently adjusted the net metering credit to greatly decrease the value of solar energy. They waited until there was a lot of solar adoption in the state, and then pulled the rug on solar owners under the guise of “making sure everyone pays their fair share”

That also happened in CA but if you already had solar panels you continue with the same rate for a while. Doesn't seem right to switch it for those already installed.
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