拜登政府可能意味着太阳能和储存

首席执行官Mike Hall;和ilan gutherz，政策和战略的副总裁，Borrego.Solar

The election results are in, and Joe Biden will become the 46th U.S. president. Like many in our industry, we expect the incoming Biden-Harris administration to adopt a strong clean energy and climate agenda that will stand in stark contrast to the harmful policies and actions of the outgoing administration. The new momentum for clean energy and climate action is already leading to thousands of pages of speculation and advice for the new administration about what issues it might tackle first, and how it might make up for the time lost over the past four years.

In our view, three potential areas for action stand out as the most important for accelerating progress on clean energy in the Biden presidency: trade policy, wholesale market reforms, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emission rules for generators and vehicles. Unlike extensions to the federal Investment Tax Credit or a federal tax on carbon, progress in these areas does not require congressional action. Given the expected makeup of the next Congress, the industry is significantly more likely to see the benefit of changes in these areas as the Biden team takes the reins in Washington.

Trade policy

也许新的政府可以采取的最快和最不争议的步骤将成为逐步升级的贸易战争，特朗普政府开始，以减少这些政策对太阳能和清洁能源引起的痛苦。

第一个去应该是前所未有的关税，特朗普政府对进口的太阳能电池和模块施加。These tariffs have levied a hidden, de facto tax on the entire industry, raising prices for solar power, slowing the industry’s growth, and turning U.S. allies and solar manufacturing hubs like Taiwan, South Korea and Canada (whose imports are also taxed) into collateral damage because of the outgoing administration’s obsession with punishing China. The module tariffs have benefitted a small number of U.S. module manufacturers (many of which are owned by multinational corporations), while hurting the American manufacturers that supply racking, inverters and other components, as well as tens of thousands of local electricians and laborers whose installation jobs have been put on hold because of this policy.

除了在模块上解除关税之外，管理还可以逆转最近施加对其他中国清洁能源组件的贸易壁垒，例如逆变器和锂离子电池。虽然我们当然不会暗示行政当局在与中国的持续贸易争议中“单方面解除武装”，但拜登队应该尽力瞄准任何持续的贸易制裁，以避免提高推动脱碳的成本。

批发市场改革

拜登的第二步总统可能会撤消上一届政府的损害将成为一个强大的，竞争联邦能源监督管理委员会（FERC）专员替代Neil Chatterjee，其期限于2021年6月至6月。在过去四年中，FERC已采取保护主义，繁重的州和区域市场，拒绝基于共识的建议，并试图通过展示新的障碍来保护竞争中的竞争，以将清洁能源和存储在批发市场中。FERC的规则正在减缓可再生能源和能源储存的部署以及增加消费者成本，他们最终支付更高的价格，因为清洁能源被排除在市场之外。

Biden is expected to quickly relieve FERC’s current chair, James Danly, of his responsibilities. This would be a good start. But the commission could make even more progress unwinding current anti-renewables policies with a clear pro-free-market majority. (Commissioner Chatterjee, who will likely be a “swing vote” on the five-member commission, has in some instances moved to open doors to new technologies, but in others has voted to increase market barriers for clean energy.) With a new chair and a less conservative commission, FERC could reverse its controversialminimum offer price rule (MOPR)policy; open new dockets to revise outdated interconnection rules delaying gigawatts of clean energy from coming online; and expand access to wholesale markets for distributed clean energy resources.

FERC could also adopt a favorable stance toward regional energy markets that decide to incorporate carbon pricing. By forcing fossil generators to internalize the negative costs of carbon emissions, regional carbon pricing implemented through the energy markets could boost clean energy and correct one of the biggest hidden subsidies propping up the fossil fuel industry around the country.

最后，委员会还可以增加其对新天然气管道的审查和延误或剥夺其建设。如果建造，这些管道将向该国的当前成瘾送到化石燃料，并且可能成为搁浅的资产，耗资数十亿美元。减慢或停止这些新的管道将鼓励公用事业公司在随时可用的清洁能源和存储解决方案中看起来更加严重，以满足他们对新一代的需求。

EPA rules

Finally, the Biden administration’s EPA could take two important actions to tilt the balance away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.

首先，EPA可以重新审视发电厂和石油和天然气业务的排放规则，旨在迫使这些行业采用最佳实践来减少碳排放。虽然奥巴马政府的调节电厂排放的方法是最终被conservative U.S. Supreme Court，拜登EPA可以清新看待这个问题，并将最污染的发电机设置在脱碳或退休的更坚定路径上。

Second, EPA could ramp up fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, providing new incentives to electrify transportation. While increasing the ramp rate on EV adoption would not directly affect the competitiveness of renewables or energy storage, electrifying transportation and heating could more than double the demand for electricity, cutting carbon while growing the available pie for our industry. In addition, preparing for widespread EV deployment will necessitate significant grid upgrades and modernization, which could help to unlock many of the current interconnection bottlenecks keeping distributed clean energy from reaching its full potential.

这些领域中的每一个都有可能大大照亮太阳能行业的前景，同时对拜登竞选活动的大胆承诺善于加速清洁能源，解决气候变化的世代挑战。我们希望收入的政府对气候和清洁能源的大胆陈述迅速变成有形结果，为我们的行业和后代的益处。

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Mike Hall是Borrego的原始创始人之一，自2009年以来，该公司担任CEO。他是在博格罗的奥克兰办事处。Ilan Gutherz has been with Borrego since 2016, and currently leads Borrego’s policy and business development efforts across the U.S. He is based in Boston.