By Jo Nova
Without forced theft from the poor, Sunnova (and others in the solar industry) might disappear
Bloomberg writers call it “chaos” and Barrons blames Trump for “uncertainty”, but the truth is the value of solar was always a false bubble held up by forced payments, fantasy, or vicarious political whimsy that spread the costs onto other people. Trump has merely restored the certainty of real value in the free market. He hasn’t banned a single person from buying solar panels, it’s just that not many people want to spend their money on glass panels that make green expensive electrons. They don’t want to spend money on “cheap electricity” that only comes at lunchtime either.
The 70% fall in the stock price is just the last few days since Sunnova officially warned it might not be a “going concern”. The longer term figures are much worse.
On November 4th, when some investors though the word-salad-woman might win, the share price briefly spiked to $7. Right now it is 58 cents, meaning it has lost 92 percent of its value since Trump won the election. The entire $12 mini-boom peak in September last year, arguably, was a bet that Kamala-grift would be worth something.
Sunnova has $3 billion in assets (allegedly), and employs 1,200 people according to Wiki. (Or it did).
Sunnova Energy International stock price | GoogleFinance
The news reporting is full of delusional excuses
Sunnova’s 71% Stock Plunge Heralds US Solar State of ‘Chaos’
Bloomberg
Solar had been viewed as a crucial answer for dealing with rising electric demand while capping global emissions…
Analysts have been lowering their home solar installation projections in 2025 after installs fell by nearly 20% in 2024. And meanwhile, the Trump administration and Congress are considering moving to cut the tax credits that Sunnova and others have counted on to generate cash. That’s on top of a federal freeze of loans and grants that were aided by Biden’s signature climate law.
It’s all the fault of the “uncertain regulatory policies” — even though Trump is dead set certain he will not subsidize these things.
What they mean to say is Donald Trump has turned off the tap, and the solar panels weren’t worth buying if other people didn’t pay:
Sunnova Energy Stock Sinks as the Company Warns It Might Go Out of Business. ‘The Overall Environment Is Terrible.’
Barrons
The rooftop solar industry has struggled lately, because fewer people are installing solar panels due to high interest rates and unfavorable or uncertain regulatory policies. As of December, energy-data firm Wood Mackenzie said 2024 U.S. installations were on track to fall 26% from the year before. The Trump administration’s policies have only added more uncertainty.
“The overall environment is terrible,” said Sunnova CEO John Berger on a conference call with analysts. “I mean, it’s the political environment, the capital markets—look at the equity trading off. And so, that just gets everybody in a very bad mood, candidly.”
Yahoo Finance blames high interest rates as if the long artificially low interest rates, set by a government appointed politburo-style-committee, weren’t just another sort of subsidy.
Much of the industry’s turbulence can be traced to high interest rates and uncertainty about the future of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Solar installers have benefited in the past from low interest rates, which make solar loans and leasing attractive to consumers. By spreading the cost of rooftop solar over many years, consumers don’t have to pay up front and often save relative to their monthly utility bills. But as rates have risen, it can take longer for consumers to benefit financially.
On the policy front, the Inflation Reduction Act extended tax credits that were set to expire at the end of last year. The new credits run through 2032, though the Trump administration has vowed to unravel the law.
It’s one of the best kept secrets of modern civilization, that low interest rates steal from long term savers and subsidize speculators and borrowers (rich people). The central bankers force institutions to charge low rates, lots of people borrow money, which increases the money supply hunting for things in the same limited pool of goods. In turn, that creates inflation and steals the purchasing power from every dollar — from children and grandparents alike.
Bloomberg writers think Trump creates chaos, but the truth is that the whole fake market in solar has been one gigantic bubble. At one point in early 2021, Sunnova shares were selling for $53.
REFERENCE
Sunnova Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results
Photo: Tadeáš Bednarz
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Never, ever base your business model on something that depends on a government-granted monopoly, forced use of your good or service or a taxpayer-funded subsidy.
A rational-thinking government night come along at any moment and in an instant your business will be destroyed.
In Australia many businesses, especially “green” (sic) energy businesses, run according to this model and many investment funds and superannuation funds (retirement funds) invest in them and its not going to end well, especially as the rest of the world becomes less woke but Australia becomes even more so.
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One great big Ponzi Scheme! We have been hounded to “invest” in solar panels for both of the two houses we have lived in over the past 30 years. Still, State Governments offer subsidies and force retail power companies to provide discounts for illusory benefits. Some State Governments even went as far as selling State owned power assets to investors who promptly increased prices to pay off debt. These same companies have subsequently closed and demolished power generation and invested in solar and wind alternatives that have just served to extend the Ponzi. All Australian Governments, since John Howard, have perpetuated it too! They even suggested we further invest in home batteries because the amount of solar generated between 11am and 2pm was overloading the system. That failed so now power companies are in the process of reducing “benefits” and charging for use of their wires and cable for the solar imputs. THIS VICIOUS CIRCLE WILL NOT END WELL FOR THEM OR US!
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There is a point where the cost of grid power becomes uneconomic if you have room to install solar panels. But cost to go off grid is also a moving target and currently not going in the right direction.
I bought 100Ah LiFePO4 cells for $156ea 13 years ago. Despite the CSIRO forecast that prices would drop precipitously, the current cost of the same 100Ah cell is $220. It might be about the same as 2012 in USD but certainly not in AUD and certainly not lower cost.
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Sunnova operates primarily in the United States, offering solar panel installations, battery storage, and repair services to homeowners and businesses.
That doesn’t sound encouraging — to my neighbors who bought into the hype.
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As TRUMP returns free enterprise to America and the nation is rebuilt, more and more inexpensive and reliable energy will be needed. The faster woke solar and wind energy disappears the better the nation will be. And US Government tax revenues will also increase because in the US unreliable energy generators get a tax credit. Those extra taxes not currently paid by Big Green can be used to pay down the national debt.
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Just heard on the radio everybody’s friend [cough!] BlackRock has purchased both ports at either end of the Panama Canal from the Hong Kong owners.
Are they jumping the gun or are they in cahoots with the President – and will it be renamed the America Canal?
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Maybe, BlackRock was told to buy it. Maybe even enforced rental rates on them as penance for ripping US citizens off with ESG policies.
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It’s so obvious to thinking people ( a fast disappearing group ). To return to sanity dump all the subsidies, tax credits etc and starve the whole fiasco of funding.
Wind & solar will disappear.
Many will be hurt in the short term but long term everyone will prosper. That should be the goal of any government but it’s all been hijacked by looneys.
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Warren Buffet etc told us the truth and these taxpayer funded con merchants should’ve failed years ago.
It’s great to see these TOXIC disasters fail and the sooner the better, but I guess Aussies will still fund these disasters until we start to wake up.
But a lot of our Aussie environments will be destroyed by Toxic W & S until we wake up to these lousy subsidy harvesters.
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Sun on the Rubble.
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And its prequel, Sun on the Bubble.
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An interesting clip from Joondalup in WA on solar panel failures.
https://youtu.be/FDrghd04G_o?si=ONiOvqra8OUD0MFQ
12 years and toast.
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There has been numerous comments in The Australian about the cheaper earlier panels failing, some as short as five year’s service.
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SIL Mackay – last year had to replace Solar Panels & Inverter after 10 years – Cost $10K
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Solar panels do seem remarkably fragile in the face of bad weather especially with the voltages and currents involved.
There are building codes for roofs to withstand cyclones. I wonder whether there is a similar standard for solar panels.
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During the worst recession in sixty years, Australia from 1990 following the decline in Victoria then called Rust Belt of Victoria basket case economy, but also national economy issues including removal of banking and finance regulation and no specific government watchdog created, Howard Coalition established APRA – Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority in 1998 – the founder of FAI Insurance, Larry Adler, started a debate on interest rates, he maintained that investors in bank term deposits should not be paid less than 5 percent interest on their funds invested to maintain a margin above the official inflation band target.
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So much for the solar panel production venture announced and to be located at the NSW Hunter Valley Liddell Power Station site.
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Far better to simply build a new HELE power station on the site. Electricity 24/7, infrastructure already in place, a trained workforce what’s not to like?
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FWIW
“The “Clean Energy” Collapse: Hedge Fund Manager Declares the Obvious”
“It’s finally happening. After years of government subsidies, media cheerleading, and financial markets propping up a house of cards, a hedge fund manager has come forward to say what many of us have known all along: the so-called clean energy sector is “dead for now.” Nishant Gupta, founder and chief investment officer at London-based Kanou Capital LLP, didn’t mince words when describing the dire state of solar, wind, hydrogen, and fuel cell investments.
“The whole sector… is dead for now,” Gupta stated plainly. This marks a turning point—when even those inside the financial world, who have long played along with the green energy narrative, admit that the numbers simply don’t add up.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/05/the-clean-energy-collapse-hedge-fund-manager-declares-the-obvious/
Time to present “ElBowen” with a message stick?
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Europe’s green retreat
Major powers are replacing ‘eco’ with economic policies that make sense
By Editorial Board – The Washington Times – Monday, March 3, 2025
President Trump isn’t the only one on a firing spree these days.
Across the pond, Britain’s left-wing prime minister, Keir Starmer, is reportedly considering sacking Ed Miliband, the energy security and Net Zero secretary.
According to the Daily Mail’s inside source, Net Zero has lost its allure and will be replaced with a “dash for growth.”
“Net Zero” is the brand name for the crusade against carbon dioxide, which not coincidentally also advances the liberal agenda. This bludgeon has halted the development of affordable energy sources and cheap housing.
As the Paris Agreement details, Net Zero should “achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity.”
This vague twaddle empowered Mr. Miliband to terminate North Sea oil exploration, rejecting a pair of in-development projects that would have injected 300 million barrels into the British economy. Rather than drilling for black gold, Whitehall preferred to tear up thousands of acres of farmland and replace lush fields with bleak solar panels and windmill arrays.
London-based bankers at HSBC see the same need. Executives are urging policymakers to look more favorably on investments in fossil fuels.
Many on both sides of the English Channel have realized that opposition to such projects is fake and often orchestrated with the public’s money.
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To whom do I send my bill to recover the taxpayer-funded subsidies to those silly enough to install uneconomic and unwanted home solar panels?
Surely equity demands all taxpayers to equal treatment.
Geoff S
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The subsidies are actually transfer payments from those who use electricity to those who make lunchtime electricity. If you are not making your own lunchtime power, you are paying someone else to make it for you. It is government sponsored theft from those who own wind and solar to those who don’t.
The benefit to you of rooftop solar, if you did not have your own, is that they cost you less than the grid scale wind and solar farms thieve from you.
The new scheme that Blackout has devised is taxpayer funded. So far taxpayers are on the hook for 8,000MWh of lithium batteries, 800/MW11,990MWh (in addition to Snowy 2) pumped hydro and 4GW of new wind and solar. These are all committed and there is more in the pipeline that Dutton will have to kill if he wants to lower electricity costs. But the burden will shift from electricity consumers to taxpayers.
The government support for wind, solar and batteries in Australia is on a strong upward trend. It has gone from pushing on the slack string through the RET to pulling with tax dollars. Only those involved in the tenders know what the taxpayers are top for. My estimate is that it is heaps.
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