Opinion
Chase: Solar glass and Tesla Solar Roof are a waste of time
“Exactly. And they're both a waste of time.”
Prediction Held up
Chase: Global Polysilicon Shortage Will End in Early 2023
“We think that this, the polysilicon shortage, we strongly think will end maybe in the next three months, although I've been saying that for a while.”
Assertion Contradicted
Chase: No perovskite lab product can last ten years in the field
“You still don't have a perovskite lab product that would really last 10 years in the field. And bear in mind that silicon solar modules are under warranty for 25 years, and a lot of developers are talking about forty-year lifetimes being assumed these days.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chase: European Solar Salespeople Pitch Returns Based on Unrealistic Power Inflation
“When salespeople sell solar systems, they have a very strong incentive already to assume that the power prices will increase, and then tell the consumers, oh, it will pay back in X years, or it will make you an IRR of 50%, and you look at them, and they're act…”
Prediction Held up
Jenny Chase: Solar will be built for green hydrogen production by 2030
“And that's even before you start thinking about, are we going to build solar to make hydrogen? And I suspect that by 2030 we are, just because we've got no idea how else to manage the problems of intermittency and how to decarbonize steel and fertilizer.”
Assertion Supported
Chase: Nearly 1 TW of Polysilicon Capacity Is Slated to Come Online by 2024
“There is nearly a terawatt of new polysilicon manufacturing capacity intended to come online in the next two years.”
Assertion Partly supported
Chase: European Governments Grant 18-Month Merchant Power Relief to Stalled Solar
“They've said, if you build your project now, we'll give you the merchant power price for the first 18 months, or until your project was due online. And since that is, well, technically the cap is a 180 euros a megawatt hour, and if you think of these projects …”
Assertion Supported
Chase: European Power Merchant Rates Hit 600 Euros per Megawatt-Hour
“There's a cap of 180 euros per megawatt hour because To solar and wind generators to, as basically a windfall tax on their profits. The merchant rates have sometimes been up to 600 euros a megawatt hour.”
Assertion Partly supported
Chase: US solar capex is 30% to 100% higher than Europe's
“Which is why US solar capexers are consistently 30 to a hundred percent higher than in, than for similar projects in Europe, and your import tariffs don't help either, but that's actually only a relatively minor part of it.”
Opinion
Chase: Current home battery software cannot economically optimize dispatch
“Batteries for residential solar systems are becoming standard offers in Europe and in the U.S., Frankly, some of the sales proposals are of indifferent veracity, and the current software isn't up to economically optimizing when batteries charge and discharge.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Jenny Chase: Indonesia will build more solar than forecasted as costs undercut coal
“I strongly suspect that there will be more solar in Indonesia than we forecast. Solar will get cheaper than coal there. It will find places to ease in. The government will probably even change its policy.”
Insight
Jenny Chase: Actual solar deployment consistently exceeds forecaster expectations
“But the history of solar shows that it, there's always more solar than you think there will be.”
Prediction Held up
BNEF Forecasts Global Solar Installations to Exceed 251 GW in 2022
“We are forecasting officially 251 gigawatts of build this year, up from 182 last year. So that's pretty strong growth, and I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out at higher than 251 gigawatts.”
Assertion Supported
Chase: EU is proposing one-month automatic rooftop solar permitting
“So the European Union is proposing to More or less automatically allow rooftop solar nearly anywhere with a permitting time of a month.”
Assertion Supported
Chase: Pre-2021 Fixed-Price Solar Projects Are Stranded in South Africa
“So, in South Africa, in some other geographies as well, you do have projects that have just been stuck in not preceding hell, because it, the economics no longer work for the contracts they're locked into.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jenny Chase: Europe has abundant brownfield and marginal land for solar
“Europe, it's really a mixture, because we have plenty of land in Europe that First of all, used to be used for industry and isn't anymore, or is used for agriculture, but not particularly productively.”
Assertion Partly supported
Chase: Polysilicon Factories Take at Least 18 Months to Build in China
“It takes at least 18 months to build a factory for polysilicon, even in China, and a lot longer anywhere else.”
Assertion Supported
Jenny Chase: Global solar capacity recently surpassed one terawatt
“We just went over a terawatt.”
