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Welcome to the experts only podcast sponsored by Clean Capital, where we explore the intersection of energy, innovation and finance. Our host is Clean Capital’s co-founder and former federal chief sustainability officer Jon Powers. Learn how Clean Capital is revolutionizing, clean energy finance, and find more episodes at cleancapital.com, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe and leave us a five star review five star review.

Jon Powers:

Welcome, my name’s Jon Powers. I’m the host of Clean Capital’s Experts Only Podcast where we explore the intersection between energy, innovation, and finance. You can go to cleancapital.com to get our current episodes. Today, we’ll be speaking with Abigail Ross Hopper, the president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industry Association. We’re going to talk to her about her personal journey in the space as well as about the growth of the solar industry and the incredible track that it’s on, but we’re also going to take a deep dive into the Suniva trade case that’s currently threatening the 23 billion solar industry and give you some tools of what you can do to take action, to help support the industry.

Jon Powers:

Abby, thanks so much for joining me on the Experts Only Podcast. Really excited to have you on and wanted to talk to you a little bit about your amazing history in the energy space. You and I first met when we were both part of the Obama administration. You were the director of the Department of Interiors Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Prior to that, you’d been working the energy administration in Maryland. What drove you into this industry? And tell us a little bit about your personal experiences and stories.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Sure. So Jon, thank you so much for having me. It’s really an honor to be here. Gosh, I don’t think of my story as very exceptional. I’ve just have had incredible opportunities to work in an incredibly exciting space. And so when I started working for Governor O’Malley and the great state of Maryland, it was because I loved his vision of the future. I loved the idea that we could reduce our energy usage, embrace all these different kinds of technology, have a much lower carbon footprint, and continue to innovate. And so that’s what really drove my interest in kind of the energy renewable energy sector in general. When I went to work for the president, I had the opportunity to really mix incredibly conventional energy, right? The vast amount of my portfolio was oil and gas as well as renewable energy offshore.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

So lots of offshore, wind, wave, and title work. And then when this opportunity came up, it kind of combined a bunch of my loves, right? The love of state politics. I come from working for a governor. I love how state legislatures work. I worked for a commission. I like the regulatory aspect so that was pretty exciting to work and have a role in state policy, combined my knowledge and my passion for federal policy. As you know, you can really impact so much when you work at the federal level.

Jon Powers:

Absolutely.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

As well as this, what really drew me to solar was the entrepreneurial spirit. I mean, I am amazed by the companies that I get to work with, the CEOs, I get to engage with, the solar professionals who are always thinking about how to make their product better, faster, smarter, cheaper, and compete like crazy with each other. I just find that exhilarating to be around.

Jon Powers:

That’s exciting. And I want to talk a little bit about the Solar Energy Industry Association. And full disclosure for listeners, Clean Capital is a member of SEIA. And you recently become, not recently, now for a good while, you’ve been the president CEO of SEIA. Tell listeners a little bit about the background of the Solar Energy Industry Association and then who are the members and what are you trying to achieve?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Sure. So some days it feels like a while done and some days it feels like I’m brand new, right? So the Solar Energy Industry Association has been around for over 40 years. We have a great history of advocating at the federal level, certainly and more recently at the state level. We are the voice of the national solar industry. And so we try to speak to legislators, speak to lawmakers, speak to the public about what this technology can do and how it can really transform our economy. And we have about 1000 members in our membership. We’re glad that you and your company are one of them. It’s a real diverse set of companies from manufacturers to developers, to financiers, different utility scale, commercial scale, distributed generation.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

We have solar thermal as part of our membership. And then kind of all of the industries that support the solar industry, so law firms, banks, engineers, environmental assessment, kind of the whole gamut that makes up the solar world.

Jon Powers:

Yeah. And they all gather out in Las Vegas, annually at the Solar Power International. Talk a little bit about that conference and what happens when you get all these members together?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Wow. Okay. Here’s my moment of disclosure, this will be my first Solar Power International actually.

Jon Powers:

Outstanding, outstanding.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

So I have heard that it is an incredibly exciting, incredibly fun, incredibly informative gathering. And so I’m really looking forward to it. I know my dance card is getting awfully full because as you say, you kind of have all the players right there in one place, and so capitalizing on that opportunity to have conversations. Like for example, we have a conversation with our affiliates so from around the country, all gathered in one place in person. So that will be exciting. They’ll be gathering of CEOs of solar companies. They don’t hang out together in large groups all that often. So to have the opportunity to sit down and talk with them about what’s on their mind with sort of geographic grouping. So folks from the Southeast, folks from the Midwest, talk about what’s going on in their areas and then kind of across the categories, right? So sitting down with utility scale developers and talking with them about what’s happening in their world, I think it’ll be a really exciting time to do all that. And I’m definitely looking forward to the fun part too.

Jon Powers:

Outstanding. I mean, what’s really exciting about, I think the industry as a whole, and I think Solar Power International represents it, is it’s evolving and becoming so large and so strong, there’s actually only a few cities that can host the event now because it’s tens of thousands of people who come together.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

It’s amazing. I’ve learned a little bit about conference planning since I’ve had this new gig. And I kind of confirm your assessment that there are not that many places that are large enough to hold us. We are definitely a very sought after conference, which is pretty exciting.

Jon Powers:

So let’s talk a little bit about the evolution of the industry. We’re at a point now where solar project installations are at an all time high. We had enough capacity added last year, 2016, to power over 10 million homes, which is incredible. It’s a 90% increase over 2015. And I think people are shocked to learn that one in every 50 new jobs in the US is part of the solar industry. And we’re seeing now that clean energy and solar in particular has actually had more jobs than many of the fossil fuel industries. But if you flash back just 10 years, this is a completely nascent industry, talk a little bit about for our listeners, help them understand what has driven this growth and where this industry’s headed.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Yeah. I mean, you did a great job kind of encapsulating the rapid transformation of the industry over the last 10 years. It has been exciting. And I think there are a couple of reasons why that has happened. One is strong policy, right? So we’ve had some states in particular that have seen the opportunity and the job opportunity, the clean climate opportunity, the clean air opportunity that solar provides and said, you know what? We’re going to go big on our policy. So states like California, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, have all embraced that. And so with that great, strong support, strong policy support at the state level, it has allowed lots of innovation. So with deployment comes innovation. And so companies have figured out better ways to install projects, better ways to manufacture their product, more efficient processes. And so costs have continued to come down.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

I’ve had opportunity and reason to look at how costs have come down so dramatically over the last few months. And so it’s staggering to see that. I think the federal government deserves a fair amount of credit for the rapid expansion of solar that both through the Department of Energy, their funding of SunShot, their funding of R&D and kind of their vision on how to bring solar costs down has been really impactful. I think that what we now finally have is a stable federal tax policy, provides some reliability and consistency so companies can plan. And then decision makers like you were in the Obama administration that brought those things to the forefront and said, hey, we do lots of energy development on public lands. Let’s expand that to solar. And we provide permitting and regulatory certainty for all of our energy sources. Solar needs to be a part of that. And so, there’s lots of credit to go around, but strong policy, rapid deployment, increasing innovation, always drives down price.

Jon Powers:

Yeah. There seems to be efficiency all across the supply chain, right from the installation side to the financing side. And there’s are jobs being created all along that chain. Can you add some color for our listeners? So what are these type of solar jobs that are being developed? We talk about one in every 50 new jobs in the US is in solar, I think that’s astounding for folks. And what makes these jobs, I think so important and more importantly, so local?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

It’s a great question. And I agree with you that one of the stories that’s really incumbent on to tell is that story of solar jobs and kind of your neighbors and your community members that are employed in solar. We employ more people than Facebook, Google, and Apple combined, which once people hear that and let that sink in, right. It kind of blows your mind because those we hold up as sort of paradigms of the ultimate American success story. So the solar industry is another example of an American success story for a couple of reasons. One is that 67% of the solar jobs do not require a college education. And so this industry is accessible to all Americans, right? All Americans can participate in this. So the installation jobs are local, right? You cannot outsource getting up on someone’s roof and installing their solar system.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

You can’t outsource kind of the electronics that have to go into wiring up solar projects. You cannot outsource the large scale deployments. There’s not a way to do that. And so those jobs are local. They stay local. They provide good living wages for families. As we look over the last couple of years, this is not an industry that is sort of concentrated only on the coast or only in blue states or something like that. It is really proliferating across the country. It doesn’t matter if your state is red, blue, or purple. If you have good sunlight and sort of the good economics, you’re going to be able to participate in the solar industry. So there are the vast majority of our states, solar is growing across the country. So it’s a really great story. And I think, we are going to be talking a lot at SPI about diversity in the solar industry.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

The Solar Foundation has commissioned a study. They’re going to be releasing the results of that at SPI. That really gives us a little bit more color into who are these solar workers, right? We have some high level statistics, 24% of solar workers are women, about I think 9% are veterans. And we know roughly about African American folks and different people of color, but we’re getting more granularity. So understanding kind of where in the value chain women are. Are all the women CEOs like me or are all the women admins? Right? That’s a really important distinction to make. Are they all in the finance field or are they all on top of roofs, right? Are our veterans out there and installing utility scale projects or are they all lawyers? Because once we know that, we can make sure that this industry remains an equitable place for all of our citizens to participate.

Jon Powers:

Yeah. As a Iraq veteran myself, I’ve always been fascinated by solar ready vets and the whole spectrum, of job opportunities this is providing for those of us who transitioned out of the military. And candidly, for many of us, it was a continuation of our mission. People came back from places like Iraq and Afghanistan passionate about clean energy because we saw firsthand the other side of the spectrum, but that’s a whole different conversation.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Whole different podcast, huh?

Jon Powers:

Yeah. Seriously, seriously.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Well, thank you Jon, for your service.

Jon Powers:

No, I appreciate that. Appreciate that. So one of the things that I really want to get into this conversation and dive deep on is the unfortunate Suniva trade case that’s been developing. And for folks that don’t know. So in the face of this astounding growth of the market, there’s a new trade case that’s been filed with the US International Trade Commission. And it’s unfortunately asking the government to put its thumb on the scale of the solar market in a negative way. And so for those who are not familiar, basically after declaring bankruptcy, Suniva in April of 2017 filed a petition later to be joined by Solar World. Can you give the listeners some background of this case? What are these two firms petitioning for? What’s the sense of the industry around this?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Sure. So you were right. In April, Suniva then joined by Solar World filed what’s called a section 201 petition. So that is a petition in which those two petitioners, so I probably refer to them as petitioners, have asked the ITC to impose global trade relief. So they’re saying, you know what? This sector of the manufacturing industry, this cell and module manufacturing, we can’t compete because there are too many imports. And so as a result of that, we need to have sort of an umbrella. Think of it as umbrella over the United States, where no imports can come in, unless they’re at a certain price. Therefore there’d need to be a tariff. So the things they don’t allege, they do not allege that anyone is dumping. They don’t allege anyone has violated our trade laws. They don’t allege that there’s any sort of malfeasance going on.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

This is really a case in which that the predicate is we can’t compete because there’s just too many imports. And so, SEIA’s position and the position of the vast majority of our members is that this is not an appropriate use of a section 201 petition. That this is, as you said, kind of two companies that really for a variety of reasons having to do with them and the way in which they’ve managed their companies, the markets in which they’ve chosen to participate, and the products that they have put out into the marketplace, those are the reasons why they’re having financial difficulty. And that it is going to be devastating to the US solar market if the relief they’re requesting is granted.

Jon Powers:

Yeah. Let’s talk about that a little bit. So as someone that’s in financing solar deals, and if you talk to developers out there, we talked earlier on the podcast about how costs have continued to come down. There’s efficiency across the market. Why is that important? Because it brings down the costs per kilowatt hour that we’re asking a customer to pay right. And competing against the status quo grid, it’s important that it continues to drive down, and we’ll see more growth. But once you put a flag in the ground around the panels and drive up those costs, we’re going to see less and less efficiency, and I think cause challenges across the whole market, which I think is frustrating on the finance side, definitely frustrated on the developer side. And as we talked about where those jobs really are, they’re across the whole supply chain, they’re not just in one bucket around manufacturing. So help us understand. So what is SEIAs position of this? What are you hearing from your members across the spectrum? And how do they view this case?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

So SEIA’s board took a very bold and courageous stand, which I applaud them for, which was, this is we are going to oppose this case. We are going to oppose this case because we do represent solar manufacturing. In fact, there are 38,000 Americans, over 600 companies in this country, engaged in solar manufacturing. They will all be injured if this case goes through. And so, we’re standing up for them. We’re standing up for all those developers, the utility scale developers, the residential developers, the installers, the financiers, and saying, you know what? This is not the right way to go about this.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

As you said, solar is not competing against solar. Solar is competing against other forms of energy, right? We’re competing against wind and natural gas in most places in the country. And so our per kilowatt hour price is critically important to whether or not people are making a decision to buy wind, to buy solar, or to buy natural gas. I think one of the pretty amazing evolutions of this industry is as our prices have come down, purchases are being made based, not simply on policy, but we’re really the most economically rational choice in a lot of situations. And so this case threatens that status. If we raise the price of solar panels, obviously it’s going to raise the price of solar energy. And we’re not going to be able to compete, and that’s going to be problematic.

Jon Powers:

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the commercial customers out there are doing this for more than just the sustainability impact, right. They’re doing it for the triple bottom line, and cost is a major component of that. But for folks that aren’t familiar with what a international trade case is, and sort of the process of an international trade case, can you talk a little bit about what that process is and where we are in the process and what the next steps in that process are?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Sure. So I would say the easiest way to think about it is in three phases. And at the moment we are in phase one, and we’ll be in phase one until September 22nd. So right now there’s a case pending with the International Trade Commission. And the question they have to answer is whether or not these companies, the petitioners, Suniva and Solar World, have been injured, seriously injured. Excuse me. I am a lawyer. I should get the language right. Seriously injured as a result of imports. And so there’s a hearing that will take place. There’s briefings that will take place. And then the ITC will issue a decision on September 22nd. Yes, there’s been injury as a result of imports. No, there has not. No, there has not, then the case is over. If they decide, if they issue a decision September 22nd, that yes, there has been serious injury as a result of imports, then we go to phase two.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

And phase two also has a hearing, also has briefing. And the purpose of that phase is the International Trade Commission will come up with a recommendation for a remedy. So if they find there’s been an injury, how do we remedy that situation? And the purpose of the remedy, Jon, is to allow the domestic cell and module manufacturing sector to recover, right, to get back on stable ground and to become healthy. So what do they need in order to make that happen? And they will make a recommendation to the President by November 13th. And then we get to stage three, phase three. I think I call them phases, phase three. And that is when the administration and the President have a decision to make about what, if any remedy to impose. So there’s a variety of options.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

This is an area in which the administration really has almost unbridled discretion. And they could say, yes, we’re going to accept the recommendation of the International Trade Commission. They could say no. Okay, we accept that you found there was an injury, but we don’t think any remedy is appropriate and not impose any remedy. They could say, no, you suggested X. We think X times two is the appropriate remedy. So it’s really, there’s a variety of options. So a great deal of uncertainty. That decision will need to be made by early January by the President.

Jon Powers:

So I want to come back to what listeners and SEIA members and others can do to influence those phases and how they can be supportive of the work that the Solar Energy Industry Association’s doing. But I wanted to highlight for folks that aren’t aware in recent… This isn’t an issue that’s been driven by the enviros and liberals and greens. I mean, even in recent weeks, conservative groups, like the Heritage Foundation have come out and joined opposition to Suniva’s position. In your own words, why would conservative groups come out and support the Solar Energy Industry Association position?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

I’m glad you raised that point. Groups like the Heritage Foundation, ALEC, that does a lot of lobbying and state legislatures, the R Street group, which is a very free trade oriented group, have all come out in opposition. I think the answer’s pretty clear. They’re not coming out in support of SEIA. They’re coming out in opposition of trade protectionism. They’re coming out in opposition of using our trade laws in a way that batters a 23 billion industry in our country. And so I think it is entirely consistent with their sort of their underpinnings of their organizations, where they believe in free and fair trade. They believe in competition. They believe in sort of keeping the government out of sort of the marketplace. And so this case, as you phrased it in the beginning, where two companies are asking the government to put their thumb on this scale in their favor is kind of anathema to those organizations. And so I applaud their courage and there’s kind of their purity and speaking out for this.

Jon Powers:

And why does their voice matter in this current administration?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

I think it matters because I think there are some who sometimes continue to see solar energy as either a fringe technology or motivated only by sort of environmental groups, or…

Jon Powers:

$23 billion fringe technology.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Climate change. Exactly. At 23 billion fringe technology that was the largest source of new generation in the United States last year. So the facts are what the facts are. And our job is to make sure that decision makers understand what the facts are. And so having voices, a variety of voices and trusted voices and sort of conservative voices that can really speak in a way that decision makers can hear, I think is incredibly important on this. And so we’re glad that the chorus of voices is broad and fairly loud on this issue.

Jon Powers:

So with that in mind, if folks wanted to add their voice. So is there a specific website that folks can go to learn more about these actions and these facts?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Absolutely. We would welcome anyone, any company, any individual to join us in our advocacy efforts. And the best way to find out that information and kind of get added to those mailing lists is on our website, which is SEIA.org/trade. Trade as in international trade. And that’s where you’ll find information and can register your company or register yourself as an individual to stay abreast of what’s happening. There’s also another coalition that has been formed, the Energy Trade Action Coalition. So if you Google that, you will find that website. That is a broad group of companies, organizations, other trade associations, who all understand kind of the threat that this case poses, and there’s opportunities to advocate within that coalition as well.

Jon Powers:

Outstanding. So we’ll also amplify those on our podcast site so folks can find them. And I’m going to end, Abby, with a pretty different direction question for you. And I sort of ask this at the end of all of my interviews for folks. But if you could go back to yourself when you were graduating high school or even graduating college, and could sit down and have coffee with yourself and give one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be?

Abigail Ross Hopper:

That’s a really interesting question. I think the piece of advice I would have is that I found myself in the energy space and in this kind of job, it was a total surprise. It was not what I thought I was going to do when I graduated from high school. It was certainly not what I thought I was going to do when I graduated from college. It wasn’t even what I thought I was going to do when I graduated from law school. But what I did was I followed my passion, and I followed really smart people. And so as long as I kept working for smart people and for leaders that inspired me, it took me on this journey.

Jon Powers:

That’s amazing. Well, thank you, Abby. Thank you so much for joining us and look forward to being in touch here in the next few months as this trade case continues to move forward but also obviously, as the industry continues to grow. And we hope to have you back on in the future to talk about the continued growth of the solar industry. Thank you.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Absolutely. Jon, thank you so much. It was a fun conversation.

Jon Powers:

Absolutely. Talk to you soon.

Abigail Ross Hopper:

Bye-bye.

Jon Powers:

Thank you to Abigail Ross Hopper, the president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industry Association for joining us. It was a really interesting conversation. The industry’s come a long way, but it’s obviously still has some challenges ahead. So I challenge you all to go to SEIA.org SEIA.org/trade you can find out more information about the trade case and keep updated as the continued phases hopefully will end not too long from now. I’d also like to take a second and thank our producers, Emily Connor and Lauren Glickman, and ask you to go to cleancapital.com to our podcast page, and feel free to submit your ideas on folks that we should be interviewing as we continue to explore the intersection of energy, innovation and finance. Thanks so much for joining us here at Experts Only.