Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shah: Existing grid capacity can handle load growth through 2034–2035
“The amount of load growth that we can handle, within the actual system that we've already paid for is gargantuan. It can easily take us through probably 2034, 20 35, right? Which, by which time we think nuclear will be more cost effective, enhanced geothermal …”
Opinion
Shah: Every energy hard tech success required massive government support
“I don't think there's a single success story in hard tech not one in the energy space that didn't involve massive government involvement, right? Not one.”
Insight
Shah: Net metering's value declines past 5% solar penetration
“I think we've always known that net metering has declining value beyond sort of five percent penetration, and, but when you get to five percent penetration, the solar industry has so much political power that they're able to keep things going.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: California's NEM 3.0 lacks a transparent battery compensation mechanism
“They did the NEMM three point O piece, but there's no transparent way of getting paid for your battery piece.”
Opinion
Shah: Residential solar loan securitization model has a short shelf life
“The game of just putting dumb solar in people's houses, you know, providing them a loan, right? Making money on that loan, right? And it's a securitization story, right? So you get debt from Wall Street, and then you own the equity slice, and then you try real…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shah: Warehouse rooftop solar may be cheaper net-net than utility-scale solar
“And so, and when you look at, you know, interconnection cues from utility-scale solar and that kind of stuff, it may actually end up being net-net cheaper to put solar on these four-acre warehouse rooftops than to put it in the middle of a field.”
Insight
Shah: Zero-backfeed VPPs bypass utility permission hurdles by only offsetting load
“And so if you make a simplifying assumption, which is that no one is backfeeding anything into the grid. Right? Right? That the batteries you know, basically use case here is to make your home go off grid. Right? Sort of an energy efficiency play. So your home…”
Assertion Supported
Shah: Green ammonia is profitable today without any government subsidies
“Such that you know, I think green ammonia, you know, today is quite profitable without any subsidies at all even at today's cost of hydrogen, right?”
Assertion Contradicted
Shah: Developers finding US sites with sub-$35/MWh power 90% of the year
“They are finding many, many, many locations across this country where you can average less than 35 dollars a megawatt hour for 90% plus of the hours of the year on the LMP.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shah: EV boom will starve grid storage of lithium-ion batteries
“A lot of lithium ion battery capacity is going to be unavailable to the grid capacity marketplace once autos are ramping up.”
Prediction Held up
Shah: Non-lithium battery chemistries will reach commercial scale within five years
“I think we're actually five years away from all of those technologies being available at scale to the marketplace.”
Assertion Supported
Shah: All 15 US carbon black plants face EPA consent decrees
“And there's 15 major plants in the United States. All of them are under EPA, Department of Justice consent decrees. As of 2013, none of them had had Sox and Nox scrubbers on them, so the people who lived in those communities nearby were breathing in some of th…”
Insight
Shah: Climate tech startups understand equity but are unequipped for debt
“The vast majority of companies like Monolith that come into the loan programs office are experts at equity and not really well staffed on debt. And they don't really think debt, they think equity. And as a result, they think, The grass is always greener, and t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: Solar and wind projects yield mere 2% to 4% returns
“They want at best, you know, high single-digit returns on their portfolio, and in most cases, the solar and wind industry are, you know, getting two, three, four percent returns, and that's after you assume forty-year life and all the other things that people …”
Opinion
Shah: Getting tire giants to sign clean offtake contracts requires an act of God
“One thing with Goodyear and Michelin that I've found fascinating is that, and they're all good people, but like, they have a venture capital arm, right? And they have like, contract for differences, renewable energy, electricity contracts that they've signed f…”
Insight
Shah: Electric utilities value dispatchable home batteries over rooftop solar generation
“I think we're just at a point now where people recognize that what's really of value to the electric utility company is dispatchability. Right? It's not the generation of power on rooftops. It's the battery that's actually in the home.”
Assertion Supported
Shah: US electricity load growth is rising from 0.4% to 2.5% annually
“We are sitting in a moment right now where we are being told, and the data is suggesting that it's true, that we're going from 0.4% load growth a year to two to 2.5% load growth per year.”
Assertion Partly supported
Shah: Large warehouses have 200 TWh of cost-effective solar potential
“And when you look at, particularly for commercial distribution circuits you're talking about something on the order of 200 terawatt hours, right? Of cost-effective solar that can be put on warehouses that are four acres or larger in size, right?”
Assertion Open · timeframe May 2024
Shah: Full VPP software integration costs roughly $35 million per utility
“Our estimates is that this would cost roughly thirty-five million dollars per utility to put all the software layers in place from the venture-backed companies that have created them to be able to, you know, actually fully integrate this whole suite, right?”
Disclosure
Shah: DOE loan exclusively funds ACES hydrogen storage, not gas plant
“Our money is not being used at all for that. So our money, the project that we're funding is an electrolyzer project using a salt dome as storage, right? So none of our money is going to a new natural gas facility.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shah: Battery storage will relegate natural gas peakers strictly to emergencies
“The role of peaker plants is going to be moved increasingly to emergency situations, right? That you've got battery storage and lots of other technologies that are being used inside the Intermountain West. To be able to provide these sort of services. And so p…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: Announced hydrogen projects model power at $30 to $34 per MWh
“And remember, for a lot of the announced projects in the country, they're talking about 30 to 34 dollars a megawatt hour for the power, right? They're not talking about 12 dollars a megawatt hour for the power.”
Assertion Partly supported
Shah: ACES secured investment-grade rating, unlike most single-B DOE LPO projects
“This project is really well structured. It was rated at investment grade for the loan, so it's actually really well structured. Many of our projects are triple C or single B in terms of its shadow credit rating”
Insight
Shah: Hydrogen and ammonia create massive option value for renewable power
“So I just think that people are so myopic in the way that they think about traditional solar and wind models, that they think that the price of this stuff is going to zero. But in fact, the option value has now just gone up substantially.”
Jigar Shah