Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carol Werner. I'm the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and We are very glad to be holding this briefing this afternoon Entitled find out how many solar jobs were created in your state And I think that's very important to note that even as we are coming out of an ice storm and we're so glad that everybody is here and that the Sun came out and Allowed us to actually be able to get down sidewalks and be able to Traverse to to work and to this briefing today that we're very very glad that we are here to talk about the whole role of solar jobs Because once again this year The the solar foundation had commissioned a study of really looking at doing a solar job Census and this has been going on for a few years now It's really really an important area to take a look at what really is happening in terms of Jobs in this important sector how they are developing what are the trends and we're going to hear from a whole panel of people who are involved in closely looking at This sector and who are involved in the industry as well as really looking at from a policy perspective and Looking at what this has meant in terms of the investments that have also been made by the Department of Energy in terms of seeing costs come down All of which was a part of the original goal in terms of really looking at how to make solar a very competitive Technology that could tap an enormous resource across this country for Americans So this is all a very important part of a very important global story Which you're going to hear more about but in terms of looking at what is really happening here in the United States to Provide information about this solar census We are going to turn first to Andrea Luckey who is the president and executive director of the solar foundation and It is through Andrea's leadership That the solar foundation has been looking at this important issue developing all sorts of information about the solar industry What what are the needs? What are the trends? What are the success stories? What are hurdles? And so we are very pleased to have Andrea present this initial report. Thank you so much Carol It's a pleasure to be here. I'd like to thank senator Reed's office for Sponsoring us and securing this nice room for us today. My name is Andrea Luckey. I'm the president and executive director of the solar foundation I'm here to talk about our research our national solar job census Report series as well as our state solar jobs numbers before I dig into the findings and the results I would like to say a few words about the solar foundation The solar foundation is an independent C3 nonprofit whose mission is to increase Understanding of solar energy through strategic research that educates the public and transforms markets. We are based here in Washington DC We've been around since the 70s and all of our reports research Findings programs can be found at the solar foundation org So as Carol mentioned, I'm here to talk about our national solar jobs census 2014 report series this is our fifth iteration of this report and we are it is considered to be the authority on Employer numbers jobs numbers trends. We're looking at wages occupations Employer perceptions job numbers projections, etc. We look at everything We survey hundreds of thousands of companies and we get thousands of responses back from solar companies nationwide in 2014 we have found that there are 174,000 solar workers nationwide Solar jobs and solar companies in all 50 states. This is up 31,000 new solar jobs since 2013 and up 80,000 since we first started tracking solar jobs in 2010 Next year. All right. I suppose it's this year in 2015 The outlook is equally as bright employers are expecting to grow their payrolls by about 36,000 new jobs That's about 20.9 percent job growth rate Now, how does this compare with the overall economy? pretty well if you look at How the overall economy has been sort of sluggishly improving right now We have unemployment at about 5.7 percent, which is not bad compared to what it was several years ago But still the solar industry is creating jobs nearly 20 times faster than the overall economy one in every 78 new jobs in the overall economy was created in the solar industry I think that's a pretty significant number when you think about how small the solar industry is compared to some of the other industries like healthcare IT We break out jobs by sector. So we look at Installation we look at Manufacturing how many jobs are in the project development? How many jobs are in sales and distribution? how many jobs are in the other sector and What we have found is that about 56 percent of all solar jobs are in the installation sector are considered installers followed by manufacturing sales and distribution project development, etc Right now there are 97,000 installers and The solar installation sector employs more American workers than coal miners right now Another important aspect of the solar industry is that it's it's very diverse. It's increasingly diverse In terms of the number of women Latino Hispanic veterans Asian or Pacific Islanders or African Americans in 2013 we started tracking demographics for the first time and over the last 12 months. We have found all Of these types of people increase in terms of their percentage and increase in terms of their numbers This slide represents how important or unemployed Unimportant experience or education is to the average solar employer and what I find fascinating about this is that Companies are really not that interested in education. They're really looking for experience So if you are a person who maybe only has a GED or was recently discharged from the military You have a better chance of getting a job in the solar industry than in many other industries what what solar companies are looking for is hands-on technical experience and There are many occupations within the solar industry that that allow for that and The reason why this is important is because these jobs pay well The average solar installer makes twenty four dollars an hour The average sales person in the solar industry makes thirty six dollars an hour So not only do you not have to have a bachelor's or a master's or a PhD But you also make pretty good money. These are considered very livable wages That said companies are experiencing difficulty finding the right people Increasingly so now we're not yet at a crisis level But it does it tell us that we need to continue to put resources into Bridging the gap between those that want to work in solar Those that are providing training for solar workers and companies that are looking to increase their payrolls with skilled individuals Now in terms of our state research, this is what this is what we released last month We released six detailed jobs reports job census reports for six different states With jobs and demographic information broken out at the legislative district level So these reports are for Arizona, California, New York, Texas, Maryland and Georgia So for those of you that represent somebody from from one of those states We have as I mentioned legislative district level deep information available We also Release jobs numbers for all 50 states. So we look at all states. We rank them We look at their electricity pricing. We look at their jobs per capita We look at their growth rate. We look at the number of companies that are in the state and In terms of the states that have the most solar jobs California is the undisputed leader With about 55,000 of the 174,000 solar workers so about one third of the solar workers are in California Which is I think no surprise given how long Longstanding their policies and and support has been That said California has six times the number of solar workers than the number two state Which is Massachusetts at about 9,000 and then Arizona, New York, New Jersey Nevada was the big breakout this year in terms of growth in terms of where it places within the other state among the other states in terms of jobs per capita Between 2013 and 2014 it experienced a growth rate of 146 percent. So it just really exploded Other states that were exploding over the last 12 months are Minnesota, Illinois, North Carolina, and Texas All of this information and more can be found on our website We have this Interactive map at solar states org where you can click on the state you're interested in and see how it compares with its neighbors and then of course the Detailed reports the census reports for those six states can be found on our website as well Thank you so much. I do look forward to answering your questions We will now turn to someone who can talk very specifically about jobs as he is involved as a senior vice president and Chief human resources officer for son Edison and We are very glad that Matt Hertzberg is here with us today and especially considering That because of his whole role He just flew in from India last night And so we're lucky that he made it in through the ice and everything else But I think one of the things that's that's also important that while he's been with son Edison since 2011 he brings an enormous amount of Experience in terms of working with Fortune 100 companies working in the utility and the insurance and in The financial services areas so it's a terrific background to bring to this really large growing Importance son Edison company and I think that it will be very very useful to think about What he can tell us about trends here as well as Globally and how son Edison looks at it and after all he is all about jobs Yeah Well, thank you Carol and Carol is exactly right It was 85 degrees when I left Chennai and that was at 11 o'clock at night. So it was quite a shock coming into Dulles last night, but anyway, I'm glad to be here. Here's what I want to do I have about 10 minutes and I'm really about three things. I want to cover so first of all I do want to build upon some of the work that Andrea presented and And maybe take it down to the ground floor level in terms of what we're seeing and then maybe Talk a little bit about why that's happening. I think because there's something driving that job growth And it's in to understand that I think would be very important to understand the job So really I thought I'd take some time just introducing our company what we do why we do the things that we're doing Maybe that's even more important than what we do is why we do it Secondly, I wanted to discuss the business opportunities and I'm going to take mostly a US perspective Obviously because of the audience, but also I think there's some things I want to talk about Globally Because I think if you look at solar growth Globally and then to really think about we as a US and our US economy and how do we want to lead this this? Revolution that we're on the on the verge of or do we want to be a laggard? I think it's one of the policy decisions we need to think about and then the third thing I want to talk about specifically about how we're Approaching some of the challenges that Andrea talked about in terms of our workforce And and I think what you'll find is that we're approaching it in a very assertive Maybe even aggressive manner and very innovative at the same time because we think having individuals who are qualified And who can not only have great jobs, but also make really good pay at the same time is something that's good for everybody Good for us as a company good for the economy good for the nation Okay, so let's talk a little bit about who we are and For some oh there was a build there and then there's a build there So we are the largest renewable energy development company in the world right now and We were actually found it though in 1959 under the the name M em see Which we had all the original patents on pure silicon So those things that are in your phones and in the cameras and in the computer That's all of our original technology and and so you'll see how that innovation is very very important as we move forward as a company Fortune 1,000 company about the 3,000 employees worldwide not including our semiconductor group Which has been spun off into a separate company now and we're responsible for more than a thousand solar and wind projects across the entire globe So and with that said we are really a leader if you look at the supply chain Especially in terms of solar because as opposed to some of our other competitors I mean we are differentiated globally, so we have a presence in every major market across the entire globe We not only install solar panels, but we we make the polysilicon that goes into them We cut the wafers we have JVs that make the cells in the in the panels We have the development companies the financing and then also we have a company called terraform Which is actually a yield vehicle to where we put our assets into that and they manage the assets So we have the full supply chain and then the final piece is we also have markets in the what's known as the utility sector The commercial distributed generation sector and also residential So and you can see here that we've experienced tremendous growth since we first ventured into solar in 2009 that is an annual growth rate of 94% and going into 2015 that's what we'll experience again So those numbers that that nice big number right there at one gig a lot will almost double by this time next year So pretty pretty exciting. So what's what's what's really behind that that growth? Well, we have to look at just what are the the Solar installations in the United States and you can see here similar type of growth of what you just saw in terms of our business Right now some of these out here are expected. You can see 2015 2016 are estimated Estimated numbers so you can see that's a nice Run now the question that you might have is policy people's what what happens after ITC? Begins to expire in 2017 You know some of the estimates I've seen that number might drop off But here's what I'm here to tell you is that if it drops off it'll be a temporary drop off Because what we are part of here is a is a global Change in in the way that energy is delivered and so while there might be a temporary Downturn in the United States economy over time it's going to catch up again And that's driven by a couple things one is just the price of of PV Solar is the only fuel source in the world right now that has a decreasing price curve Everything else is increasing. Okay, so that will continue to draw drive some of this demand The second thing is is you know, I think that we have to consider do we want to be a leader or a lagger in terms of the global revolution? Here is what's going on in the globe Okay, so by 2020 there'll be over a hundred gigawatts of PV installed now if we were to look at renewables which would include also wind solar and Hydro and maybe some biomass What's remarkable about this? I didn't make a chart on this, but what we would have found in 2013 There were actually more installations of wind solar biomass than there were of nuke oil gas and coal Okay By 2020 it almost double so just to give you those numbers and and last year it was 87 megawatts in terms of coal nuclear and gas and it was a hundred over a hundred gigawatts gigawatts I'm sorry if I said megawatts of renewables, okay by 2020 that goes up to set that goes to 78 in terms of of your traditional fossil sources and nuclear and it goes to a hundred and 40 in terms of gigawatts of installed renewables, so that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the world economy So then the question becomes You know in order to compete in that for a limited Labor force as we already talked to so that we can meet this demand, but with this late limited labor force What is it that we're going to do? Couple things so good wages is just the start of this But our thought is is we have to create a world-class culture, you know the best place to work in an environment to go along with that This means enabling people to show up and be at their best every single day And we've thought about this in a couple ways So one is to have that culture with a great value statement and and things that that that really makes sense for us But the second thing is is to make sure that that we're really serious about it in terms of our benefits So some of the things that we've done is we've actually reduced our Our premiums on our insurance. We've actually increased our insurance coverage Which is absolutely the opposite of the trend of everything else, but it makes sense our business trend is opposite Why wouldn't our benefits trend be opposite everybody else, right? And that's that's you know in fact if you're an employee you zero coverage You pay nothing for your coverage. We automatically cover all employees Second thing is you know, we've increased our tuition assistance. We have one of the best 401ks in the entire Country in terms of our retirement Our maternity leave is 16 weeks our paternity leave is four weeks And we also have what's known in addition to our long-term and short-term disability benefits We have what we call compassionate care and what that means is if if an employee is terminally ill Okay, we will cover their full salary for at least three years. Okay, if they expire, which is what we don't want But if that happens We will actually cover 50% of their wages for 10 years for their survivors In addition for terminally ill employees who have family or for family members Who are terminally ill we will give people up to six months leave So that's what we're doing in terms of attracting high-profile P or high-quality people to our organization And then finally here we want to diverse we want to focus on diversity and and veteran hiring for all those reasons that Andrea said But in addition to that for diversity, you know, we understand that it's a reality of the workplace That the workplace is becoming more and more diverse, right? So if we're going to compete in that workplace, we have to be a diverse organization as well because what we know is diverse organizations have An advantage over non-diverse organizations in terms of recruiting diverse talent second reason is we're in a very complex nascent Industry which means things are going to constantly evolve and and it's very very complex and and so what we know about diverse Organizations is they tend to be better decision makers When you have a diverse business environment, right? And so that's that's very fundamental Also, we want to make sure that we're reflecting the communities that we serve and and our potential customer basis And I think the final piece there in terms of diversity. It's just the right thing to do In what it does is it absolutely fits with our purpose Our purpose is to transform lives through innovation and that started as I said in the semiconductor industry Which we have done through all those nice cell phones and everything else that you have in your hands But more fundamental in that when we think about transforming lives we think about what we can do As an organization and so in a developed nation like ours What that means to us is is green sustainable affordable energy for people, right? and when I say sustainable it's also reducing some of those bad things that we don't like like SO2 and nitrogen oxide and and CO2 and Particle matters and particulate matters and mercury that that comes out of it not to mention nuclear waste, right? So we can eliminate some of those so in terms of improving the quality of life But even more fundamental in that is the quantity of life itself and let me explain that if you look at life expectancy Okay The availability electricity is directly correlated to life expectancy Right now there are 1.5 billion people in the world that do not have access to electricity Okay, in India alone. It's 300 million. That's the population of the United States And that's why Prime Minister Moody is so interested in solar But what that means is if you look at life expectancy in those areas life expectancy is about 50 years old 50 years old in Areas with electricity that jumps up to about 78 or roughly where we're at depending on where you're at in the world 50 years old so we can not only impact the quality of life But the quantity of life itself and that's that's what we're about as an organization And because of that we've partnered with all kinds of foundations worldwide To really make an impact and make a difference to put our money where our mouth is in essence in the United States there's two things that we're doing in Terms of along the lines of diversity of workforce, but also making sure that that we can account or we can bring renewables Hmm, I might have to talk to the rest of this hold on Okay, I'll tell you what I'll yeah. Yeah, that's okay. I can I can keep talking so I know what the next slide Yeah, yeah, no problem So I'll talk about two things so the first is There's a partnership that we have with grid alternatives and the first one is women in leadership. Thank you, Andrew. That's even better. Okay So it's a women in leadership initiative that we'll talk about in a second, but what this what this particular Initiative is to do is to give 1,000 women Across the the United States training in the installation of solar We also have 20 paid Internships our fellowships as we refer to where these will be year-long fellowships to learn all different types of jobs in solar There'll also be some educational networking opportunities with that and the whole thing with grid alternatives What they do is they install solar on low-income Families houses, okay So so to really help families reduce their their energy dependence and and to be more independent and To bring a certain cost structure there. So that's that's what we have there second one is Something that we call rise or a new initiative called rise in rise is Is a program that we have that that really is partnering again with grid alternatives Two years five million dollars is is what we are are actually donating now Some of that's in cash and some of that's in panels and the whole idea is to really increase recruitment and underserved communities To make sure that that we have real-world experience for at least 4,000 individuals So again that point that Andrea made that it's it's having those skill sets and that knowledge that enables people to get jobs And another 40 paid-in internships, and then there's some readiness issues and in terms of getting people ready to take those jobs And then also referral job banks and those types of things So that's that's what we're really super excited about is is to put our money where our mouth is and to really make a difference in The world and transform lives not only in terms of quality and quantity life but also the ability of people to actually get real real jobs at good wages and And this is what we're thinking about just in the United States alone We will hire about 600 people next year 600 to 700 depending on the estimates and these are the types of jobs that we will be hiring in Our operations jobs finance services why you might ask why finance so high is because part of what we do is we actually finance a Lot of these projects and so it's not just your traditional finance people But it's also your project finance folks that we bring in and would lump into those categories Now one of the questions you might have is with grid alternatives Their focus is primarily on installation although they their their training programs do more than just installation It hits they have things that hit each one of these But we really don't hire a lot of installers. That's just not our business model We work with the engineering procurement and construction companies to do a lot of that work for us But what we realize is that those installation jobs? They are the feedstock of all the other jobs in the industry And that's why we're willing even if it doesn't directly benefit us we're We think this is important enough that we want to make sure that that we're doing this for the entire for the entire Industry is good, and we hope that some of the other folks in the industry will really Maybe follow some of the stuff that we're doing we welcome that so thank you appreciate your time great, thanks so much Matt and Right before the briefing. I was just mentioning to him that I had also heard based upon conversations with folks in New York State in terms of Their community colleges that are doing solar certification for training, you know for training installers etc that That their program basically They just need more people because everybody that goes through their program They have been able to place so that it's again one of these things in terms of that That there are a lot of jobs that are being created that are available now. It's it's A case of of making sure that there are people in this workforce to To be there for those positions So now we will turn to a meet Ronan who is the director of the George Washington University Solar Institute in a meet is also a professor at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy at George Washington University and of course some of you may know him from the many years he spent here in the Senate on Senator Maria Cantwell staff working on on energy and a whole variety of other issues meet Thanks. Thanks Carol and Thanks for organizing Another great briefing Alright So I was asked today to talk a little bit about the policy trends That's what we do at the DW solar Institute. Look at some of the public policy Barriers that are going on with the solar energy world And so I guess the another way to ask the question is well, where are all these jobs coming from? Why why is solar growing 20 times a national average that it did last year and the year before that? And what's the future look like? So here's a big part of the story you just see these are different sectors of the industry It's generally termed out to be Residential that's sort of your rooftops non residential that's like your commercial spaces like Walmart and utility That's your big solar arrays in the desert all the costs are coming down very quickly And it's really remarkable to 80% drops in the PV panel prices in the last five years So if you think about that well if that would have happened in the nuclear industry We'd probably have a very different conversation about what the future of the nuclear industry is is but it's not as meant was mentioned so there's the only Technology I mean there's a few others debatable like wind and such but the cost curves are are really driving down costs and Since this technology was really first tried to be commercialized in early 70s the cost have come down 99% so when Jimmy Carter was talking about we should all go solar There's a very different playing field than what we're talking about today So then if you look well, what's the future hold? These are the energy department's sunshot goals I think Mike will be talking a lot more about that, but this is important reference point So you have they have a goal that was ambitious goal They set in 2010 and say hey within 10 years. Can we get down to basically price parity? Six cents or sometimes it's considered one one dollar per watt for utility scale But important thing just to look at the trend lines here. There's two important one one You have the PV module costs. So what I was just talking about. We're pretty much there I mean we're talking about a couple cents that will decrease in the future, but that has gotten down so low that even Even if panel prices were free you still have this other two-thirds of the cost which are called soft costs or or Balance of system costs. That's everything else related to the industry Putting up a system. So we're talking about labor like the jobs here the installation the permitting the customer acquisition is a big big part of that So that a lot of the stuff that Sunshot is working on addresses those particular cost barriers And so taken together you see this chart, which is similar to the one that Matt had You got cost coming down very quickly and you got installations going up extremely quickly The final 2014 numbers aren't out yet, but you can see basically estimated where they are We'll have those in another month or two and there's a a mix between the photovoltaics, which is what does sort of your typical Standard panel and then concentrating solar power, which is uses a thermal energy of the Sun to also generate electricity Those are usually in larger arrays that you you see in more desert situations But this being said, I mean there's important note here. There's a lot of growth obviously, but still solar's Gonna be less than 1% of the National generation in probably this year or so I mean we'll see where the numbers come out So there's a long way you could I guess the positive spin is a lot of room for solar to grow But also that you know, this is still a nascent technology that is is getting out of the gate There were some interesting numbers and predictions that came out of the International Energy Agency a few months ago Typically thought to be a pretty conservative organization in there in their analysis But they found that within a couple decades that solar would be the number one Generation source in the world not a majority. They'd be 25 percent total under their calculations But more than nuclear more than natural gas more than any other single source All right, so the important thing the linkage here between this growth and jobs is all those places you're seeing where the where the installs are that's also where all the jobs are and That is one unique thing about solar in a way because when you're putting up a solar Project particularly on distributed generation like on rooftops and on commercial scale that job is there it's local the person has to be hired from typically the the community and And it's a good a good job opportunity as as Andrea talked about for You know people who might not have a college degree But they can still get a living wage job through this new new opportunities that are there So this that's in solar installation according to the census was 56% of all all the installs But actually interestingly all of these new jobs of 31,000 Nine out of ten of them almost were from solar installation jobs So that's where the the industry is really taking off to these jobs. It can't be outsourced And then The bit of a repeat for from what Andrea mentioned about California But there's some interesting trends. They're still booming California Of course being a larger economy, so it's not necessarily fair to compare them to other states, but they have been very committed to seeing a solar future there for a head of the game Compared to other states and now they're reaping their reward. So they not only created 7,500 new jobs in 2014 But they're expecting 10,000 new solar jobs there in that country in that state. I mean some people call it a country and Other ones Nevada, of course now being number one solar jobs per pack per capita, California is actually number four and then one other important trend I wanted to mention here on that on this correlation is that Another interesting finding coming out of the census was that It now only takes 15.5 jobs on average per megawatt installed And that is a decline of about 25% from 2012 when it was around 19.5 So the industry is growing, but also it is becoming more efficient So that gets back to where that that curve that you just saw in the soft cost It's a very important factor because installation is a is a really big cost driver right now And I don't want to forget about solar manufacturing That's about 20% of the Total job picture 19% and so there's some interesting trend lines to pick up here too. So we had a definitely had a trough in 2012 We had some good years came down. I won't get into all the factors, but you know Had to do with the economy a lot big investment government investment in China In terms of where they want to go, but US is coming back there So that's a 275% increase from our low and in 2012 And we also there's a lot of other manufacturing besides photovoltaics I should mention that happens here in the US too. There's solar water heaters, which is an important part of this industry there's the CSP materials a lot of Films and high-value IP stuff is manufactured here in the US and shipped abroad where it's where it's assembled All right, so that's some of the trends I wanted to go a little more into what we're seeing from a meta level So we got the solar employment growth. We talked about that 20% increase expected next year Another good news story sunny trend for For this industry is essentially there's a lot of public support. We got 80% of Americans In a recent poll said they wanted to see solar and wind increase a lot and 10% wanted to increase somewhat so that's 90% total Which is interesting because only 1% of Americans are getting their power from it But a lot of people want to see a solar future and then I thought Another interesting poll this is from Gallup last year the two-thirds of Americans supported spending more government money on developing solar energy We have a huge number of drivers in terms of Government and business I won't go through all those in the interest of time, but This administration is paying a big leadership role in trying to get renewables out through executive orders The the nation's largest electricity provider the US military is looking at getting three gigawatts of Power from renewables and a lot big chunk of that is coming from solar The Department of Interiors opening up 25 Well, just a lot of land in in the West in particular that's that's managed by the federal government for solar energy so those are important and then on the business side you got some of America's most profitable in and Essentially biggest business is saying they they think solar makes sense from their bottom line A lot of them have readily admitted that is they're not doing this for environmental reasons But it just makes sense. So Walmart is largest solar installer in the country. They got over 250 Sites you got Apple a couple weeks ago announced they're gonna spend eight hundred and fifty million dollars on a single Facility in California and the power generated there would be enough the equivalent to power everything they need in California So they're big headquarters their server farms all their retail stores and these guys are thinking well I can lock in a source that's I know what it's gonna cost I never have to worry about fuel costs increasing in the future I can be green at the same time and the economics really work for them And one other trend I want to mention which is important is that the reality is the US is a bit of a a bit player in In this in terms of where the growth is I think Matt was wasn't in India visiting family, but son Edison has a lot of Looking they've announced some I won't get any proprietary stuff But they've announced that there's some great market opportunities in India. We have labored hard to get the solar industry basically to we'll probably Reach 20 gigawatts this year, which is a be a big milestone for the US But we are the guys who invented the technology and brought it through all these decades China wants 40 gigawatts by next year and other places have these enormous goals Saudi Arabia Places where you would think well, why would they do it a Lot of economics behind it and a lot of trends that it makes sense for them so It's good for the US because they see we are leaders in some of the business models and the financing and things like that and Under the countries around the world. They're asking for our expertise and to help them grow their economies but not all is happy in Sunny sometimes it's cloudy And I'm just gonna briefly go over some of these we can get into more of these during the discussion if if people are interested But we're seeing particularly in areas where the solar penetration rates are the highest or they're starting to really Really take a cut at a what is a fixed pie in terms of electricity sales rates that utilities in particular and not all utilities but a number of utilities have been aggressively Trying to slow distributed solar growth basically rooftop solar on homes in particular and that's gotten ugly in a lot of places we see We're we're seeing some localities where you have a your 30 second ad campaign style commercials which are Very low information, but just try and get you as those kind of attack ads do on both sides and The battles are being played out in the legislature on state regulatory commissions places where you don't usually People don't pay attention, but it's pretty important for the future of solar There are a lot of uncertainties regarding the Incentives that have underpinned much of this growth in solar Matt mentioned again the the ITC. That's the investment tax credit. There was a very important law that Congress passed in 2008 October 2008 which provided a 30% investment tax credit for both commercial and residential solar and and The there are a few important things there one very important thing is that it was an eight-year credit and that eight-year certainty Really allowed the industry to grow for people to make long-term investment decisions all those big solar manufacturers Solar concentrating solar plants and others that take years to build if they didn't have the certainty that knowing that this would last through 2016 they wouldn't have happened, but now we're almost at 2016 and so we're gonna see the next year there's gonna be tremendous amount of Rapid growth the the industry is again saying they're gonna have a 20% increase, but So that's all good But then we have a cliff situation where it drops down to 10% for commercial it goes away for residential and that's never good for a Industries growth because you're gonna have a bunch of people hired next year and then what happens after that They're not gonna have the same amount of orders are rushing them all to today So I think some policymakers even though solar is almost there on the price parity within a couple years Is there a better way to do this through say ramping down those incentives gradually in a predictable way that industry can bank on and Financing can happen behind it. I put in one One a little bit more on this because it's a hot topic in Congress and it we had some interesting Results coming out of the the census Basically three out of four businesses said that the investment tax credit was very important to them it significantly helped their business The solar installation sector thought even stronger that 88% said that the ITC was vital to their sector But they're notable that about 40% of the respondents to this big census and we had thousands and 7,000 so respondents Said that lowering the ITC to 10% wouldn't impact their workforce so there are a lot of Solar related jobs that aren't necessarily tied directly to the ITC. So first there's solar water pool heaters They don't get the ITC anyways, but also people who are exporting people who are manufacturers who? Who are not that tied to the direct? ITC, but I think in general there's there's some Concern about that cliff nature and that any rapid changes is just going to cause churn and Slow down, which is what could be a continuing success story? Okay, two other trends for you. So we have the solar trade war Some of you may have heard of this is a long and complicated, but essentially there was a us solar manufacturer and Who petitioned the Obama administration before the WTO to ask saying that the Chinese were dumping panels? Here in the US basically producing panels and selling them at below their cost to hurt the Domestic manufacturers the Obama administration took up their case. They were terraced placed on those panels countervarying tailists terraced placed on other components of the solar both supply chain by China So what it results in essentially is a those panels cost more for US installers because they have to pay this tariff on top of it and so that drives up costs and again a lot of uncertainty there about how this will all play out and generally a negative drag on what's going on and Then we have a you know even a important thing to remember is that where solar has is in a competitive playing field and There are a lot of incumbent technologies that are both been around for a long time. They don't necessarily Have to pay for all their externalities a particular fossil fuels of course and and the related pollution is not Not into not placed into the cost of their production of energy and so that is a and they also have a lot of existing subsidies People debate on what levels those are the Obama administration's budget proposes for example to Remove 50 billion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies that have been around for a couple decades So but that's an important trend to consider when there's a lot of debates about who gets subsidized where and and for what that You have to look at the bigger picture. All right. Thanks a lot Thanks, so we've heard a variety of things talked about and and any number of times the conversation has gone back to thinking about things that the Department of Energy has been involved with and I and our last speaker on this panel is Mike Carr who is the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy I think what's really important here, too, is that the Department of Energy in its role in terms of looking at R&D and Technology development deployment Looking at kind of the the hurdles the barriers how things need to be addressed partnerships with the private sector and The whole role that it has played over the last few decades and in conjunction also with legislation that has been passed by Congress both on the policy and obviously on the tax side and and the Department of Energy and other Parts of the administration have been responsible for the implementation of that So we're going to hear a little bit more about What has happened in terms of DOE's story from from Mike and I should also mention that he brings a Lot of experience also from the Hill in that he was the senior Council up here on the Senate side for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for a number of years Mike Thanks, Carol and and Andrea and the Solar Foundation team as well as a meeting in the GW Solar Institute for inviting me to speak It's it's not also all this important work that we're talking about today I also wanted to give a special thanks to Matt and the and son Edison for your contributions to the solar industry As Matt was talking about and just a few weeks ago son Edison partnered with the grid alternatives to launch an initiative that provide hands-on Solar installation training for job seekers and and then connect them with solar companies looking to hire This is the the kind of partnerships that we really value and I think can be Really a key to growing the industry So as Carol said, I'm the the principal deputy assistant secretary for EER In our we view our job to try to ensure American leadership in the global transition to a clean energy economy So we work towards that goal by supporting some of America's best innovators and businesses in researching developing and demonstrating while and deploying cutting-edge technologies and By working to break down some of the market barriers Across our three energy pillars sustainable transportation energy saving homes buildings and manufacturing and this solar in the renewable electricity generation space So I want to talk a little bit about ERE to try to find a little bit of context On the on the price drivers That we see For the solar industry so for us that's through the Sunshot initiative Sunshot was launched in 2001 Sorry 2011 To drive research manufacturing and market solutions to make the abundant US solar energy resources more affordable and accessible for Americans Since its launch Sunshot has funded hundreds of projects in the following areas Solar photovoltaics concentrating solar power soft costs systems integration and the technology to market So we're working to make solar energy fully cost competitive with traditional energy sources before the end of this decade And already thanks to Sunshot and our industry partners solar Solar-generated electricity is now on par with traditional energy sources in seven states Across the US including California, Hawaii, Texas and Minnesota It's clear we're making progress and Incredibly quickly So since then shots inception the average price of a utility scale photovoltaic project where Or PV refers to a solar panel based project that has dropped from about three hundred or three dollars and eighty cents a watt To about a dollar sixty-eight a watt And only halfway through Sunshot's Ten-year initiative the solar industry is already 70% of the way to achieving the Sunshot cost target of a dollar per watt This will translate into about six cents a kilowatt hour for utility scale PV And on the residential side, we've seen a similar dramatic drop in prices Where the average price per watt is decreased from about six sixty when Sunshot was launched to three dollars and twelve cents per watt in 2014 and so since 2010 The average cost of solar PV panels has dropped more than 60% and solar PV system costs Overall have dropped about 50% of what of what they were three years ago So Sunshot is well on its way to achieving its cost reduction goals by 2020 but And importantly because we've made this this amount of progress on the on the manufacturing side and on the cellular side Soft costs have now become an increasing part of the remaining cost that we need to squeeze out of the system So we call these we call these things soft costs They include everything from permitting to customer acquisition connecting the grid and the financing So an example is even though the hardware costs are comparable the installed cost of a solar in Germany is less than half The cost of installing solar in California So almost five dollars a watt in California where about two dollars and twenty five cents a watt in Germany So there are a lot of factors that contribute to these cost differences But this shows that there's still a lot of potential to lower PV costs system prices in the US even beyond reducing the hardware costs So Sunshot right now is funding Is funding and has funded hundreds of projects that are making every step of going going solar more affordable From streamlining panel manufacturing processes to cutting the red tape involved in the installation So for example in 2011 Sunshot launched the rooftop solar challenge, which provides teams from across the country With funding to come up with innovative solutions to make solar the solar installation process cheaper faster and easier And in the second phase launched in 2013 So the combined effort of 22 teams from 19 states in Puerto Rico helped to cut permitting time by 40% and Reduce fees by more than 10% by putting permitting and plug-in approval processes online for millions of America This helps ratepayers through group purchasing programs and driving down total system costs by about 20% shortening permitting wait time by 40% and reducing permitting fees by 12% and So as we all know time is money so the quicker solar can be installed the cheaper it becomes and Which creates this positive feedback cycle of lower costs and continually growing markets So let me walk a little bit through our priorities for funding So as these achievements are becoming more broadly recognized including by Congress and ERE has seen a pretty steady increase in our budget for the past 10 years so our FY 16 budget requests reflects the administration's strong continuing commitment to clean energy with increases across all of our sectors But to highlight the solar program specifically the proposed budget of $336 million would support all of these the goals that I've already articulated including in particular reducing soft costs training new-installers and Improving our comparative advantage in manufacturing in the United States But we're here to talk about job growth. So as we've heard This is a rapidly growing industry that is driving job creation in the United States just in the last year the solar industry added 31,000 new jobs for and So we we believe in the SunShot initiative in particular in an ERE that solar is the great the next great American industry Feeling economic growth by providing job opportunities to Americans of all backgrounds Especially our veterans and I'll talk a little bit more about that And so as our vets come home after their service to our country We at ERE wanted to help give them a boost in prompt in this promising sector And that is what that has one of the highest job growth rates in the country as shown in solar foundations report SunShot has developed a solar installation Training pilot program to help them use those the skills that they've already acquired and not just get any old job But a career in this booming industry the first three pilots take place at the at three military bases camp Pendleton, California Fort Carson, Colorado and Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia Each program trains transitioning military personnel on how to size and install solar energy systems and develop other related solar job skills There is no training cost to the veteran and the solar companies have no obligation to hire trainees Though DOE believes these veterans will be among the strongest candidates that a solar firm could wish for The first class of Marine trainees just graduated last month at Camp Pendleton Training courses are set to begin at Fort Carson and at Naval Station Norfolk later this spring As we look to make it faster easier and cheaper for Americans to choose solar energy for their electricity needs SunShot is doing our part to build a well-trained skilled workforce to meet the growing demands of the solar industry It's important to remember that our work here is cyclical the more affordable Solar gets the faster the industry will grow which will in turn continue to create jobs And so we can continue to drive down cost and expand solar's presence So just just to wrap up If SunShot and our partners can achieve our 2020 goal of cost competitive solar energy throughout the United States That could mean the creation of two hundred and ninety thousand new solar jobs by 2030 So let's continue to work together to invest in this future and for our and our growth of our clean energy economy Thanks again for the time Great That was that was terrific Let's and I should also mention that all of these Presentations all the PowerPoints will be up on EESI's website I know that a lot of these charts and in terms of the handouts are pretty small So and there are a lot of important facts and numbers there that you will probably want to really look at a lot more So please go to the website and and check that out Are there questions or comments for our speakers and if you could identify yourself, please we'll start back here I have two questions for our last two speakers first to The speaker from it. Yes, you I'm sorry. I forget your name, but we saw the downward trend in In growth for the year 2012 what it was the fully accounts for that you mentioned China and Other government policies. Yeah, that's what I'm at the manufacturing Yeah, the manufacturing didn't know exactly what I was for. Thank you for clarifying, right? So one of the issues obviously the overall state of the economy in the US, but China was definitely a Big driver in that the Chinese government decided Basically like five six depends how you say it but they basically spent fifty billion dollars saying we want to have our own solar industry here in the here in China and Some people consider that to be a great gift to the world because they single-handedly have a big factor behind Driving down Panel prices so much which has opened up a lot of the stuff that we're we're talking about and so it's essentially their Government investment is making solar panels cheaper for people here installing in the US as one perspective although there are obviously others because Manufacturers say well, that's not you know fair competition and that kind of thing I think that the overall point here is that our our companies are regaining steam We have leadership on a lot of the high high value IP areas and that a lot of US companies are actually Manufacturing abroad as well. So that's an important dynamic. So companies that The largest manufacturers here in the US have some facilities here in the US Which are often used those panels to meet by America kind of provisions But probably the bulk of their stuff is also manufactured abroad So it's creating a global supply chain, which is probably healthy for the larger industry going forward. All right. Thank you, sir and a question for mr. Carr regarding the Nails regarding the actual downward trend in Overall costs and all areas is that due to quicker installation times? Is it so do solely to do a quicker installation in times and In increasing available availability of technology or are there other factors that play as well? So there's a there are there are number of factors There are a bunch of part pieces that make up the soft cost challenge actually just a Just to follow up a little bit on what a meat was saying and I think maybe this helps make it a little clearer too You know when you saw that that dip in 2012 I mean that was a chart by quarter and so you're seeing a You know you're gonna if you look at a supply curve For any technology looking back ten years it'll look pretty pretty steady But in fact it's made up of a lot of variations over time as as you know supply Maybe overcompensates for for demand and then and then you know the markets tend to adjust and one of the things that This administration has done is is in is in our negotiations with China that they've agreed to dramatically increase the amount of Solar that they're going to be deploying Domestically so that's going to actually do a great deal to sort of soak up some of that over supply And so they I think they will be you know There there are those out there that uh that would advocate that they may actually become a net importer at some point because they Have they have actually their commitments are so sizable maybe that won't happen But the point is there's going to be some continued calibration back and forth and we're seeing because of the increased demand here in the United States much more interest in Bringing the manufacturing here closer to where they're going to use We're going to use the panels and as I mean was saying a lot of the really valuable IP still resides here Throughout the value chain on the on the rest of it You know permit times matter matter a great deal customer acquisition is a big factor in costs Just a you know just the various ways we can sort of smooth that process But there's also things like there's balance of system costs There's the racking costs and you know and we've just gotten better We sort of there's a learning by doing in any technology when you When you do more of it you you get better at it and you get cheaper at it And and I wouldn't and I I think I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the the role of third-party financing Like that son Edison and other companies have have provided which basically You know in my view is is just matches the capital availability better to the to the resource You know if you're going to have something that's going to provide value to you for 20 years Well, then you know third-party financing lets you sort of smooth out the the borrowing so that it matches It matches the return on investment Matt did you want to add to any of that? You know the I think the only thing I would add was My covered it well. I mean obviously part of the price is coming down so quickly. We're on the manufacturing side, right and just um the technologies being deployed and then also just the economics of what was going on back if you looked at 2009 2010 2011 there was especially Europe kind of dried up very quickly and all their feed-off turns ended Um, and so then the Chinese kept their factories open, right? And so you put those two things together a demand going down supply going up and you know what happens to the price points, right? But the the but the technologies now is is is kind of caught up to where you know, it's it's made that Um to where you can make those modules at lower price points and those wafers at lower price points The other thing though is in Construction and I think construction just in general Um, that's where you get this insulation It's it's not we're on the manufacturing side You've had heavy efforts in terms of lean manufacturing to take waste out of the system There hasn't been the same thing on on the construction side and that's where a lot of our focus is right now is working with our EPC Engineering procurement and construction partners to really make sure that they're leaning out all those those processes that they Have because if you just do kind of a time motion study and you watch how construction crews work There's a lot of opportunity to squeeze waste out of there Okay, other questions. Okay right here So I guess now that the industry is still like expanding and accelerating kind of these people have a lot of A lot of work assuming installing panels and everything but when it reaches a saturation point What is this job compared to in terms of like is there like a lot of upkeep? Are these people going to be like working every day? Maintaining existing equipment I'm not quite sure how it works and that's what I want to find out I can I can start with that So a couple things so you're right with the installation and I still think that Will installation dry up? I don't necessarily see that for a couple of reasons a the economics that we just talked about B, you know the thing you have to consider also is there's there hasn't been a new nuclear facility started since 1978 if you remember that was Three Mile Island So those plants just ran the math right here the youngest plants are 40 years old You're a lot of your coal flower The fleet is even older than that So a lot of those assets have to be retired and and what I would submit to you is just think about well What are you going to replace it with right? At least not I know I don't want that stuff in my backyard But I don't know other people's backyards probably the same Answer the other thing is you you alluded to is is exactly right once you build these solar arrays Although there's a lot less maintenance and those In that technology than there are in others you still have to take care of them Right, you still have to monitor them. You still have to have and so that's one of our growing businesses Is actually the services side of the business to where necessarily we're not necessarily employing a lot of installers But we do employ a lot of technicians which are even higher paid jobs Um folks who go in and troubleshoot things folks who go and maintain them on a routine basis And make sure that that we're getting the efficiencies that we need out of those out of those power plants No, your technicians are definitely that Yeah We look at it on a regional basis. You're exactly right We have regional teams that are deployed then to some of those sites on the wind. It's a little bit different We actually do man Some of the wind plants where there are people who are there dedicated to those plants just because again the technology But on a solar side, you do it more on a regional basis. You're right and you dispatch crews out there Okay, I guess I would just I mean I think it's easiest to think of it like like the construction industry or or it can be even You know well services in the in the oil and gas industry I mean, you're you know, you may drill one well or you may build one house But then there's another house to be built and there's another and another and another So, uh, you know Glance at google maps and you can kind of see How big the opportunity space is for for for solar, right? I mean there's uh, I think we are We are a long way from a saturation point Where we're even, you know, even talking about Only the best possible sites think for decades to come One of the advantages about solar is that it doesn't require a lot of maintenance Very few moving parts Once you get it installed you can more or less forget about it Now from a jobs perspective that could that might be a bad thing Because we want to have we want to make sure that there's always people Employed in the industry, but as was mentioned, you know solar represents less than 1 percent of our overall energy production The sky's the limit There's so much untapped potential out there that we are very very far from reaching any Any type of saturation point and so we can install lots more solar Regardless of how labor efficient we may come Regardless of how Little maintenance is required The sheer numbers of workers that will be required to meet future demand is is is pretty significant We're talking 290,000 350,000 Those are a lot of numbers over the next few decade decades Andrew I think actually has really quickly there's also a Panels typically have a Okay panels typically have a lifespan of around 30 years and we haven't quite yet get to that point where You know you're seeing a significant retirement of panels But eventually the next generation of technology is going to lead to these installers Reinstalling panels on homes that already had them. It's going to be like any other Infrastructure that you might have in your house. So these jobs aren't likely to go anywhere Yeah, in addition to that not only the 30 year lifecycle, but there will be you know, you'll have cost of benefits because as As the panel efficiency increases and the cost decreases it might make sense Hey, I only have a 20 year panel that still has 10 years, but I might want to replace it just because of the efficiency So long story short There are going to be a lot of jobs and and it's going to be growing and rather than contracting at all Okay, the question back here My name is Anton Terrell. I'm from Senator Tom Udall's office And I was wondering with the shale boom of 2014 and lowering prices at the pump Uh, does that set you guys back at all or is that gonna affect your um your calculations for job protection? I've there's been some uh Articles recently that calling solar the next shale gale or however you want to call the shale revolution But certainly the low cost of natural gas is the major competitive just to solar when you're thinking about as a Utility or whoever putting in new assets. What what are you going to do? It's usually pretty much a decision between natural gas and and solar There are some some locations where the They're required to do at least cost new generation sources and solar still winning out of that And then I don't think a lot of people are really think that natural gas prices are going to be kept so artificially low in the future So one of the benefits of going in the solar essentially locking in a guaranteed price For the life of the system 25 30 years usually amortized over 25 years they last longer a little bit of panel degradation, but minor So a lot of people are making that uh calculation About whether it works and the reality is it's probably not necessarily mutually exclusive because gas is an important pairing with Solar in a lot of circumstances, particularly when you think about the intermittency Of some of the sources on and on a utility scale that gas is important Uh backup Yeah, I think just as ame was saying it's it's really it's it's more about what time scale You're going to look at if you're going to if you're if you're looking more than a few years into the future as most utilities Uh need to do Then solar the just the raw economics of solar still look look very good They do pair very very well together, and I think that's that's an important piece of it but I think the other factor that that you'll hear from utility executives and and uh And others actually at the state and local level is uh having some diversity is in itself a Way to reduce risk overall um, so there's there's no volatility in in the electrons from the sun, so um the You know, I think you again. I think you still have a very very high ceiling For solar penetration before you start talking about things being sort of crowding each other out In in the energy space And one other thing I just wanted to add you know from one of the very interesting things that Well, I'm interested in solar is it's potential to be disruptive in terms of the current Uh electricity model where we have a hundred-year-old model central generalized general centralized generation Uh, and you know one large company owning that and then you buy electricity as you use it solar has this potential where Homeowners can buy their panels themselves and take more control of their their energy So that is a unique Thing that even wind or other renewable energies can't provide That I think might put it at a different footing than say uh straight natural gas on a on a cost per watt analysis Okay, we've got a few more questions and actually that raised another question that I'd like to ask too, but Okay here and then back here and then to you Hi, my name's eric camera. I'm a senator bill nelson's office in florida And I just had a quick question about Productions going beyond 2015 2016 as far as the solar industry in those studies or if there have been done anybody department of energy Do you take into account like the clean power plan and its effects because in state like florida? We don't have a renewable portfolio standard I was wondering if in states that don't have that renewable portfolio standard When they do have have to abide by certain Levels of renewable energy with the clean power plan will that make a significant difference? And is that taken into account? In in general They're not built into our studies. Uh, that's that's An exogenous factor for for for our models It you know Partially because we can't really foresee exactly the way that'll that'll all play out and And the clean power plan, you know, does have a lot of different pathways for for achieving the reductions in in it, so I think it's you know, we regard solar as one of the More exciting and sort of viable pathways to go down and you know You know the the biggest I think challenge for any of these new technologies is I think as amita alluded to earlier is they're essentially competing with an already paid for resource in many cases and so Whether you whether you do it by beginning to measure the the externalities associated with it or you or you simply, you know Begin to reassess your investment profile I think that you know that solar rises to the top of one of those and one of those investments that you're likely to make To achieve that but no, it's not in our it's not in our current modeling Yeah, there's I mean, you know just add a add a factor to what to what we have If you if you really want to drill down on that I think it's not in the models because there's so much You know uncertainty of how things will play out in the state by state plans But I think the larger question that's been talked about a little bit. What is that? When you're you got this huge literally trillions of dollars of investment that need to be made to replace plants And is that a driver there and deciding? Well, do I just replace it with the existing coal or natural gas or do I think about solar now that the economics work better? So that's where epa Is an important like, you know factor in terms of how people are thinking about what we need do need to meet the Standard what are we going to do? I mean florida's got a lot of other issues being you know very sunny state but having policies like they don't allow third party financing and things like that which is really slow down the solar industry relative to its potential So those might actually changes to those policy. I would argue to have a much bigger effect than the epa's power plan Great Hi, here's to Myers from congressman gary mendy's office. Uh, mr. Ronan You talked about disruption within this new solar Industry one of the things that always irked me is as much as you go solar You're still liable to the grid in the sense that I'm from california And even though there may be you may be on solar if there's a blackout in your region You're still susceptible to that and in some cases. So there's no personal storage of the energy I was wondering if any of the panelists can address that going forward. I'm not a scientist So is there any you know applicability of maybe storing your own personal energy instead of giving it back and then waiting for it So to speak I'll just talk briefly mac and uh, obviously that's A lot of the tension that's happening now is that people essentially are using the electricity grid as their their backup battery Right this giant battery when you have extra power you sell it to them. You need power you use it There's definitely a future and a lot of people are seeing this as the next sort of Solar sized growth area and storage and that storage can come in a lot of different levels at the What in the level you're talking about sort of the homeowners that you just have the batteries in the basement You can disconnect from your your grid entirely that uh frightens utilities a lot They've called this they call it a death spiral. We'll give you an all of that but That in technology is already there today. It's not economic in a couple years It will be increasingly economic and that might be a future where you see significant Investment and from a homeowner's perspective some of it is because they want to make sure they always have power Some people hate their utilities and and want to get out of it I mean you're seeing an interesting dynamic politically where a lot of tea party Folks are very pro-solar because they feel like from the libertarian type streak They want to control their power so you have these green tea party They call it coalitions in several states and georgia and and others where they these diverse Views politically are teeming together to try and open up the solar market from different perspectives It's really a question economics. I mean we we actually have in in areas where that do not have solar and we're bringing Light or do not have electricity and we're bringing solar to them And maybe a village in nicaragua or are somewhere in india or in africa We actually have self-contained units. They have the solar panels have an inverter there and they have batteries on the bottom And you know, so the only question is how much do you want to spend for those now? Here's here's the interesting thing I think right now Kilowatt of storage will cost you about 400 dollars per kilowatt. I think is what it is. I haven't seen numbers lately My guess is the trend lines that I see that drops in half in less than five years Um, and and that's where a real revolutions begins to take off because we already talk about hybrid solutions When you mix storage with other kind of fuel sources But once you start having that storage then your need to mix it with other fuel it goes down Tremendously so you know a lot of tremendous opportunity with with storage and there's a lot of good smart people working on it right now And I I really do think those you'll see those curves happen I guess we invested your electric car. Yeah, you know, this is exactly you paid for for a whole different reason electric car But it actually has a tremendous battery capacity Built into it that you could always you can run your house for a couple days on just a couple gallons of gas Or you can put your power into it So that's another interesting dynamic, but there's very complex Network to put all these things together and get everything to talk to each other But there is a lot of work going on in that whole area And I was just going to say I think we invested at the wrong time that or whatever, but but the thing is Um at my house. We actually do have batteries connected to our solar system because We have been very concerned about making sure that our sump pump would run When there are terrible terrible Downpours, you know, like in in terms of hurricanes when we've been without power for five days here in the district So anyway, there there are all sorts of reasons and values with regard to those kinds of investments. Okay question right here I'm alex from congresswoman catherine rice's office and um, it seems like There's a lot of growth in the solar industry without the help of congress except for Um extending tax cuts and um, what would you like to see coming from some of our offices and like what kind of support Would you want from members and senators that you don't already have or need? I think they've all been waiting for that question Thank you. We should just go right down right down the row Okay. Yeah, do you want to start andia? That's fine. Um, well I'm not at all in a position to take a policy stance We are a strict c3 nonprofit, but what companies are telling us Is that they love And need policy stability. They need long term Set and stable policies whether it's the itc whether it's a renewable portfolio standard that they can count on Whether it's net metering that works and pencils out whether it's third party financing So really it's the certainty and stability Now maybe you will like to take a more pointed approach to that good question. No, I I mean, I think it's it's all in those areas, right? It's it's uh, you know, we we know what happens when there's instability in business situations And you know, whether it's you look at what businesses do or what wall street does right? They don't like uncertainty So the more certainty you can have around policies always always works to everyone's benefit And I think exactly those areas that you were talking about um tax credits net metering permitting Third party financing all those types of things and bring some stability and a point of view to that I think would help the industry greatly I first I make a distinction between your federal side policy and your state side policy because Some of the stuff we have a 50 state electricity policy here in the u.s. Which makes things very messy Uh or laboratories of innovation as you saw from Who's getting the solar jobs and who's not but the stuff like that's rps and permitting and and things like that Those are generally and net metering very importantly are State policies by and large the feds can't really touch that Or just try and drop a bill and then you'll see a naru come down on you pretty hard But there are some important federal drivers that we we've talked about the ITC investment tax credits So it's currently the 30% Expires at the end of 2016 if there can be some certainty in terms of how that goes forward We can avoid a lot of a cliff situation there One thing we haven't talked about that's very important in the in the tax regime When we've done some analysis on this can send you if you're interested But there's a lot of a lot of the proposed changes in tax reform also Make a lot of changes to depreciation schedules And the current depreciation schedules are probably as important in a lot of cases for for solar investment in terms of the economics So maintaining those schedules Are important and then the feds can do a lot on leveling the playing field I would think on terms of my last point in my presentation in terms of providing taking away other embedded subsidies that go to other players so that That actually makes solar look better So similar to andrea We we don't we can't advocate and So I guess I would just I would echo the sentiment. We've heard the same things, you know the the stability of policy the stability In in whatever however you want to handle it is Is is really the key and you know sort of returning to my days working for the committee I mean we certainly saw this in other technologies wind Arguably is was sort of like a decade or so ahead of solar in its in its cost curve and The interruptions in its incentive structure cost it dearly and the in in Bringing down the cost curve and we actually saw pretty dramatic Turnaround in the manufacturing in the united states which is bounced back But you know is now again in a precarious Spot so that's you know, that's just history. That's that's what we've seen before with these technologies And I guess the the last thing I think to keep in mind is you know Is I part of what we're showing here is you know What those federal investments are buying you know We're going to keep doing our job and trying to push down these costs And and I think we have some great programs to do that and So, you know, we feel very good about about the sort of the cost benefit analysis of what Our investments are yielding But the the larger investments in the in the deployment side You know, they play out in jobs. They play out in cleaner air They play out in an increased diversity and opportunity. So, you know, you guys can make your own calls on that I just added that so the industry is a 15 billion dollar industry now You know, this is several billion dollars more each year if you look at the sunshot investment It's just a fraction of that so The president has an aggressive budget Request from congress on that level Probably unrealistic given the times but Oh, did I say that? But you know, there's there's certain levels where you can keep important programs Going and then, you know on this larger issue in terms of solar is now As in whenever whenever there's a Threat to an incumbent industry you're seeing a lot of new attacks on solar that are very well coordinated That was a report that came out last week from I won't Okay, they Ryan sounds like a soda name funded industry And this was very coordinated. There's a lot of misleading statistics that were used there And you see this everybody has heard of cylindra in terms of this, you know, this is why solar is never going to work There's a mythology about solar can never work without price subsidies I think we've shown some of the price trends of that certainly not true The reality with the loan guarantee program, which by the way, my car wrote in 2005 And he should be proud of it. So the uh That was that was republican past congress republican president signed that That investment so there's a lot of talk about cylindra losing their 535 million dollars The reality is that the program has already turned to the government 800 million dollars in interest payments, which is more than the losses occurred by the three most famous defaults of cylindra fisker and a bound solar And it's projected to increase Federal revenues by five billion dollars over the next 20 years for off the interest of the of the program So you're getting a boost to these technologies. So take the csp example the concentrating solar plant The loan program worked. I think as it was intended it funded the first five major projects in the u.s Which wouldn't have happened without that program and since then 17 other large facilities, there wasn't a A facility a solar farm in the u.s over 100 megawatts before 2009 17 have been privately financed without any government Support so that's an example of a doe program that worked to get a nascent industry They have to it has to be proven before the banks will ever touch it But that's where the government came in and lended that support now There's a new industries and they're selling all over the world They're talking to other the companies that build those csp plants are also now talking to Saudi Arabia and other places about building the same thing And I think you know one thing I'd like to add to that I mean because I I do hear that quite a bit with Solar companies going out of business and when you have a new industry guess what there are companies that are going out of business Because you're going to have to get the business model and the economics right, you know I'll just remind you in 1901 there were 2,000 car companies in the united states They didn't all survive in fact very few survived. I think three right okay, so Not to say that we'll have that same rate of consolidation, but you'll see that happen There'll be certain models that just don't plain work So if anyone wants more specifics in terms of what we're looking I'd love to set you up with our government affairs folks too That's that they would probably be more poignant in terms of their ask of Congress Any last question there there are lots of things to discuss yet, but we're past our time. So any last last question Otherwise feel free to follow up with with any of our speakers or with us at EESI The discussion was great So and I want to thank all of our panelists and I want to thank all of you for asking some very very good questions So We hope to see you at another EESI briefing again very soon and look forward to Working with all of you in terms of looking at how this also fits into the clean power plan What's happening with regard to utilities in terms of looking at utility scale versus Totally distributed Because we also know that there are a lot of issues underway too in terms of thinking about greater resilience across the country As we deal with more and more extreme weather events and disruptions. So thank you all very very much


With us today, we have an Opayemi Adeniro. Opayemi currently works as an AI evangelist and partnership manager with Omdana, where they develop and deliver compelling presentations, product demos, and opportunities in the AI and machine learning space. As the partnership manager for Omdana, Opayemi continues to identify leads for potential partnerships and customer opportunities in the AI and machine learning space. Thank you very much and thank you for giving me this opportunity. I'm happy to be here and thank you. Omdana is a bottom-up collaborative AI development platform where a global community of chain maker comes together to build ethical and efficient AI solutions. So what we majorly do is that we look for problems and we solve issues in artificial intelligence. So Omdana works with leading development organizations as well as NGOs to build real-world solutions and accelerate their path to becoming a data-driven organization through a process what we call AI-enabled NGO. Okay, so now how can we help you to become an AI-enabled NGO? In Omdana, we have four strategy steps that we have put in place to help you become an AI-enabled NGO. We believe that's all organization can become an AI-enabled through these four steps. Number one, discover. We want you to tell us your problem. Tell us what you want to do. Tell us what your NGO is all about. Secondly, we reach out to our community and send your problem to our community where we collaborate and solve that problem using artificial intelligence. They will bring back the results to you which you will be taking to the third stage which is productionized. So which is a form of a proof of concept of what we're able to build from the problem you brought to us. During the third stage, you will be able to use that product that we have helped you to build to raise funding for yourself. And also on the third stage, we help you to like improve the product to having a selected AI-engineers amongst us to work with you throughout the whole phase. Then the fourth stage will not be the capacity building where you're interested in recruiting people to work on your projects. So we believe that AI, we believe that all NGOs, all NGOs can be AI-enabled. All you need to do is just to reach out to us with what you are solving, what kind of problem you are solving in the community. We're taking the problem and we solve it through our AI collaborative platform. So explore how we can help you. So innovation challenge, we raise a diverse team of 50 AI-engineers talents with data collections, build a proof of concept and deliver a prototype for you. So the second stage is dedicated same. We make available two to five veteran engineers build a production level solution that is followed by the next stage, which is capacity building. Then we also provide to you ITOP performance from our real-world talent pool. What we do for all NGOs, just like what I've explained the other time, is that we make sure that we build a proof of concept that you can take out there to raise funding for yourself. And we also provide to you AI-engineers that can work with you at any level. And also at your capacity building stage where you want to employ more people to work with you. We also have diverse teams of AI-engineers across the world that can help you at this stage. So some of the project we've worked on, we've worked with World Resource Institutes. Omidina has worked on like five challenges and two challenge projects with World Resource Institute. We've also worked with UNDP. We are currently working with UNDP and we've also worked with Save the Children. Here we're able to build an online chat spot where we're able to educate children about online abuse. And these are just few of one of the projects we've built. I also love to have that. We also have a local chapters that handles local problems and we have built a lot of effective solutions. Some includes solving artificial intelligence using solving unemployment using artificial intelligence. We're able to also use solar energy. We also be able to solve energy problems using artificial intelligence. These are just one of the projects we've done in Omidina. For you to become an AI-enabled NGO, we believe that Omidina can help you to become an AI-enabled. No matter the kind of organization you run, no matter the level you are at any point at any stage in time, all you need to do is to tell us a problem. We take you to the next stage. We work on the problem through our collaborative platforms and the next stage we deliver to you a prototype that is a proof of concept where you can take to raise funding for yourself and also where you can use at the production level stage. And the last stage is at capacity building. We believe that at the end of the day we also provide to you skilled AI engineers that can work with you at your capacity building stage. For people interested in becoming an AI-enabled, you can just visit our platform at omidina.com. Power slash AI NGOs. Thank you very much.