In this #Solar100 interview, Hao Shen, Chief of Staff of kWh Analytics, speaks with Emma Foehringer Merchant, reporter at Greentech Media.

What Nina Totenberg is to the Supreme Court, Emma Foehringer Merchant is quickly becoming for the solar industry. She’s the first to note that she’s early in her career, but like Totenberg in the ‘80s, Foehringer Merchant’s already become a subject matter expert and must-read reporter in her field.

In this interview, Foehringer Merchant talks about how energy journalism has changed with the recent administrations, the most controversial piece she’s written, and what 2019’s biggest stories mean for 2020.

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SOLAR REPORTING: THE BEGINNING

HAO SHEN: You majored in Environmental Analysis at Pomona College and have been in journalism since then. Did you start your career in the clean energy space?

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: I started my career covering environmental policy and environmental justice at The New Republic and Grist, so my background is more general reporting on environmental issues, and I transitioned into clean energy specifically when the opportunity at GTM cropped up.

When I started at GTM, I thought that clean energy reporting would be pretty similar to what I had been doing, but it's a pretty different world. I recognized that it would be a great opportunity to learn about a sector that plays a big part in environment policy. I've learned a tremendous amount about everything from how electricity works to how our energy system is set up, which is much more specific knowledge than I had coming from a liberal arts Environmental Analysis program. Now I’m our go-to solar person.

HAO SHEN: What drew you to focusing on the environmental front initially and then into the solar space at GTM?  

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: My dad is a public defender and my mom is a public health nurse, so from a young age I knew I wanted to pursue something beneficial to society, and I knew pretty early on that thing was journalism. I went to college with the intention of becoming a journalist, but I wanted to study a lot of different subjects and gain a well-rounded perspective. I took classes in a large range of disciplines, like history, anthropology, and religious studies, and my education gave me an understanding of how the environment intersects with different topics.

As a business reporter, that’s helped me see how my work intersects with different facets of society and culture and how my reporting on solar fits into the larger picture of climate change and environmental issues.

HAO SHEN: How has energy journalism changed over the course of your career?

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: I graduated in 2014, so fairly recently, but climate and energy journalism has definitely changed even in that time. I think that's partially due to the differences between the Obama administration, who was in office when I started, and the current Trump administration.

When I started my career, the Obama administration was actively pursuing environmental policies guided by environmental advocates, though of course they pushed his administration to be even more aggressive. Now, the private sector is more ambitious with sustainability targets and clean energy, and the Trump administration is pushing back and rolling back environmental policy. It’s an interesting switch. We’re also seeing a lot of climate and renewables policies on the state level.

Another interesting change: people are paying much more attention to clean energy and climate change, and more mainstream publications are getting into the nitty-gritty and publishing stories about these topics. Not only are people paying more attention, but the way in which people are talking about clean energy and climate change has also become a lot more urgent, even in the last year and a half. These issues are getting more attention, and they’re being taken more seriously. Developments like the IPCC Report that came out in 2018 are helping people understand the gravity and urgency of climate issues.

HAO SHEN: Undoubtedly, media attention will continue to focus on the 2020 presidential election. Do you think that there are topics in the climate and energy space that deserve more attention? 

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: There are a lot of areas within climate change and clean energy that deserve more attention, and we're getting there, but journalists are people and we have to figure out in real time the best way to cover the news. 

Journalists covering the 2020 election have been great at explaining the candidates’ platforms and how they differ from each other. Hopefully, further along in the election cycle we’ll get more details on what those policies would look like and how they will be achieved. The Green New Deal got a lot of people talking about climate change, and many candidates support it, but people are still waiting to see what those specific policies look like in practice. They’re also wondering how these policies might be achieved without the support of Congress, how much change can realistically be made, and how rapidly the administration can implement these policies. We need to push candidates on those issues. Right now we have the rhetoric, framing, and interest, but it’s unclear exactly how you can move to the next level—real, implementable policy.

Circling back to your question on how energy journalism has changed, another phenomenon that has been really interesting to watch is the effect of the Green New Deal and the work of environmental groups and grassroots activists. Activists have pushed environmental justice to the forefront of the conversation, and that reflects in the way that presidential candidates are talking about environmental issues now. Because of this, journalists have learned how to connect issues like health, transportation, and inequality to environmental policy. They're better at understanding how the issues intersect. Journalists are beginning to understand now that those issues need to be considered in their coverage.

Lastly, as a reporter that covers national issues, it can be a challenge to stay on top of local stories that capture where the energy transition is taking place. At GTM, we cover state-level policy changes and local-level policies that we think are indicative of larger trends, and I would like to see more of that. Local papers do an amazing job of reporting on their communities, but often have few resources, which makes it difficult to have a specific environmental or energy reporter. Local journalism is very important.

HAO SHEN: Absolutely, and I think that's a great point on how the federal focus on global climate change can often overshadow a lot of local impacts. 

What qualities do you admire in other journalists?  

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: I admire the ability to frame a variety of these issues within a larger context and the ability to connect these different themes. I also really appreciate accountability journalism and journalists who dedicate time to stories that may run counter to common belief. Investigative journalism is really important right now, and we need more of it in the environmental space.

Additionally, as a young female journalist, I’ve found a very supportive and strong community of female journalists in the environmental journalism space. That has really encouraged me.   

HAO SHEN: You've written pieces for Greentech Media, the New Republic, Grist, and In These Times. To date, what has been the most controversial piece you’ve written?

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT:  The most controversial piece I’ve written was actually pretty recently, at GTM. It was an article on a report conducted by the Solar Energy Industries Association and the Solar Foundation that found that white men hold the overwhelming majority of executive-level positions in the solar industry. For anyone who has been to a clean energy conference, this is probably not much of a surprise, but that story got a lot of unexpected pushback. I was pretty shocked at the negative reaction we received from some men in the industry about the piece, in which we were pointing out a trend that is not exactly unclear to anyone who works in the industry.

From my perspective, the makeup of this industry very clearly does not look how it should given its future goals and the groups of people that it serves. It was definitely an eye-opening experience that taught me where the industry stands. A lot of people in the clean energy industry talk about the need to become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, so I was just really surprised at some of the response.

At the same time, in stories that have had more of a justice-focused element, I have also gotten a lot of positive responses from people in the industry who feel It's important to talk about those issues, so it was also encouraging to have that feedback as well.

 

2019 YEAR IN REVIEW AND LOOKING FORWARD TO 2020

HAO SHEN: You recently covered ‘The Stories That Defined the US Solar Market in 2019.’ Can you provide a quick recap of those stories and give some insight into how that’s going to impact the solar market going into 2020?

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: That story focused on three specific areas: 

1.       The impact of federal policy that happened this year, specifically the non-renewal of the investment tax credit, tariffs and the exclusion for bifacial.

2.       The trend of corporations driving clean energy purchases on a broad scale across the world, but especially in the US and many state markets.

3.       Solar and storage, and the increasing attachment rates we're seeing. This is important in places like California, which is experiencing power shutoffs, most notably from Pacific Gas & Electric. 

There was a lot happening throughout the year, but those were themes that I covered again and again. 

Going into 2020, things remain uncertain on the policy side.  The solar industry says it's going to continue fighting for an ITC extension, but the jury is still out on the outcome of that, especially heading into the 2020 election.  I wrote about the difficulties of securing a deal due to White House pushback with my colleague Julia Pyper.

In terms of the bifacial exclusion, that had a back and forth with the Trump administration revoking it, then the clean energy industry pushing back, and it ended up being reinstated for the foreseeable future. The U.S. Trade Representative opened up a comment period on the exclusion, which suggests it could be removed again. It's unclear which direction that will end up going. 

Section 201 tariffs are phasing down, but we're also at the midterm review period. It’s unclear what the Administration will decide to do with those—if they will let them continue phasing down or change their structure to prevent that. In 2020, I think the industry will focus primarily on the ITC stepdown, and they’ll continue dealing with tariff struggles that are still going on in the background and providing some uncertainty.

This year it’s been interesting to continue monitoring solar purchase records set by corporations pursuing 100% renewable goals. I don’t necessarily want to prognosticate whether there will be another record in 2020, but you are seeing more companies lay out sustainability goals, in part driven by employees at these larger companies who are really getting engaged in environmental activism. Companies will continue to pursue purchasing because of both public sustainability goals and the economics of the decision.  I've been told this time and time again by sustainability managers at these companies, so I think that trend will definitely continue.  It will also be interesting to see how it impacts state markets where these companies have a lot of business like in Virginia and Texas, where companies are realizing that they can get really cheap solar. It will be interesting to see how those purchases unfold. 

And then in terms of solar and storage, we're hearing from both local and the national solar installers that they're expecting an increase in demand due to publicity around the power shutoffs in California, although it's hard to tell exactly what the long-term reaction will be. I don’t expect the situation in California to change markedly in 2020, so I think that we'll see a lot more people pursuing solar and storage for resilience reasons. There is still an economic hiccup where the economics don’t always work perfectly in certain markets, but I think we're going to see that continue to change. Storage will become more and more a part of the equation. You're really seeing a lot of big companies push storage and frame solar and storage as a dual solution as opposed to just selling solar.

 

NON-CONSENSUS BET

HAO SHEN: What's your biggest non-consensus bet for 2020? 

EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT: I live in San Francisco, and there has been a lot of talk lately about what will become of PG&E. We’ve heard that jurisdictions are proposing different ideas about what should happen: they want to break up PG&E, San Francisco wants to control its own power.

My biggest non-consensus bet for 2020 is that PG&E will stay PG&E—it will stay an investor-owned utility. It’s important to have these conversations about what the future of electricity should look like, and California is often at the forefront of these conversations about clean energy and climate change, but we shouldn't underestimate the power that utilities have in their territories, even with Governor Newsom criticizing PG&E right now. Once we deal with the fallout of PG&E's bankruptcy, even with the bid from a lot of jurisdictions to control their own power and an increase in interest in community choice aggregators, I think that at the end of the day PG&E will probably still be PG&E.