Jenny Chase

@solarchase

Solar analyst at BloombergNEF, goose keeper. Author of a book, "Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon". Opinions all my own.

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Jenny Chase@solarchase· 11d

Unlike that of the rest of southeast Asia, Pakistan's gas demand has been falling. Pakistan's solar boom is partly attributable to excellent do-it-yourself videos on Tiktok and youtube, and partly to two other factors, says Zainaab Basil in an interview with BNEF. www.bnef.com/insights/40017

Chart of Pakistan's gas demand, historical and forecast, sourced to BloombergNEF which collated data from Pakistan Energy Yearbook, Pakistan Economic Survey, Bloomberg Terminal’s AHOY JOURNEY (historical), Independent System and Market Operator’s (ISMO) Integrated Generation Capacity Expansion Plan 2025-2035 (IGCEP 2025-2035), National Electricity Power Regulatory authority (NEPRA).

The chart shows gas demand by sector (grid power / domestic / fertilizer / industry / other / losses), in billion cubic meters. Between 2020 and 2025 the total dropped 16%, though it spiked in 2021 on higher losses. The main sectors in the drop were grid power, domestic and industry. This decline is expected to continue at a slower rate to 2035.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· 14d

We are driving the EV back to Switzerland from Kent, and wow this is a huge solar structure in a random place. ( @bjoernstats.bsky.social is running down the car battery more than I feel comfortable with).

Photo of a dry field by a motorway, with a huge structure of 8 by 9 solar panels standing free like a sculpture on the horizon.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jul 8

This is solar build in Germany - a big slowdown 2013 to 2022 as the country tried to downratchet the overgenerous feed-in tariffs, but picking up strongly in 2023.

A BloombergNEF chart showing solar build, 2000 to 2036 (expected as of mid 2026). After a boom from 2009 to 2012, the market slowed down to just a few GW/year before picking up to 15GW/year in 2023 and slightly more in 2024 and 2025.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jul 8

It's true that the German wind market fell off between 2018 and 2025, though we expect the auctions to bring it back up from 2026 to 2036.

A chart showing German wind onshore and offshore new build by year from 2000 to 2036 (forecast as of mid 2026). These were around 2GW/year from 2000 to 2012, had a small boom of 4-6GW/year 2015-2017, a few years of doldrums and is expected to pick up again to nearly 12GW in 2026.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jul 8

Minutes of a market's peak solar output that can be stored in total battery capacity, end of 2025. Hawaii was the highest I could find, at 92 minutes, while the EU-27 aggregate is just 8 minutes.

Chart showing BloombergNEF data for minutes of battery storage, calculated as cumulative battery capacity in megawatt-hours at the end of 2025, divided by cumulative solar capacity in megawatts at the end of 2025. It is highest in Hawaii at 92 minutes, is 66 minutes in California, 44 minutes in Saudi Arabia, 34 minutes in the UK and around 30 in Texas, total US, Chile and Italy. Germany and mainland China are both on 15. Spain has 2 and India, 0.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jul 5

The baby is big enough to be on a bike! He seems resigned about it.

Jenny Chase, on a bike, with her 10-month-old baby on the back seat. A field of maize and the Alps are in the background.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jul 1

Batteries are replacing gas to firm up wind and solar in Australia, though (chart), and also in California (link). www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

A screenshot of a BloombergNEF chart also sourced to the Australian Energy Market Operator, showing the intraday hourly average revenue earned in the National Electricity Market for the first quarter of each year from 2022 to 2026, for gas-powered generation (grey) and batteries (pink). The majority of revenue is in the evening hours, when the sun goes down. The revenue from gas is clearly lower in 2026 than in previous years, and battery discharge revenue is clearly eating into it.

From the associated story, "During the first quarter of 2026, discharge from utility-scale batteries in the NEM averaged A$0.40 million ($0.28 million) in wholesale energy market revenue at 7 p.m., up 211% from A$0.13 million the year prior. The increasing volume of batteries discharging during evening power price peaks in the NEM is reducing demand for the gas plants, whose average evening revenue earned fell 23% to A$0.58 million in 1Q 2026, down from A$0.76 million in 1Q 2025.
As more batteries come online, competition to maximize returns from arbitraging intraday swings in the power price will intensify. Increasing volumes of charge and discharge from competing battery projects is starting to soften volatility in the NEM, tempering the very dynamic that made the market so lucrative to batteries in the first place.
Across the NEM, average intraday arbitrage was A$203.33 per megawatt-hour in 1Q 2026, a 12% year-on-year decline, driven partly by the increasing penetration of battery storage in the NEM. This ‘self-cannibalization’ of arbitrage value available to batteries could intensify further in the near future with an estimated 9 gigawatts (27 gigawatt-hours) of capacity currently under construction across the country. Battery projects will need to diversify their revenue streams with non-market sources of value such as offtake agreements and system security contracts to bolster their business models against lower arbitrage returns."

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jun 29

This is Germany - solar supply of 47GW at 2pm on that Tuesday, of grid load of 57GW. Solar was still supplying 18.8GW at 5pm. Can you imagine the situation 20 years ago when that solar contribution would have been negligible?

Daily power supply for Germany on June 22 and 23 2026, during a heatwave, from BNEF. On Tuesday, June 23, solar was supplying 47GW out of 58GW load at 2pm - and generally the big yellow chunk is a majority of daytime power demand.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jun 29

The UK doesn't yet have that much solar capacity, and neither does France; but even so, imagine the power grid last week if it *hadn't* had that big solar chunk (this is France last Tuesday, during a scorcher; at 2pm, load was 57GW and solar was 19.5GW).

Chart of power demand, supply and load for France on June 22 and 23 2026, during an extreme heatwave. Source is BloombergNEF. The power mostly came from nuclear, but there's a substantial chunk of power coming from solar during the daytime.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Jun 29

For example my solar panels produce about 60kWh a day in the sunniest days of April and May, but also produced 52.6kWh yesterday (when we used 33kWh).

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 29

Accidentally turned the garden hose full on the baby for several seconds, and after a moment of confusion he is delighted to be sitting in a puddle. (It seems I only breed water creatures).

A large baby sitting on a mat outside, in a small puddle of water.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 29

That's the NEO Energy Transition Scenario. My chart was the BNEF solar team forecast. Basically we don't think the ETS is right - it builds more wind than the wind team thinks, for one.

Some text and a char . The text, which more or less recapitalates what the chart says, reads: "2.1. BNEF’s New Energy Outlook Energy Transition Scenario –the terawatts add up
BNEF has just published its New Energy Outlook 2026 (web | terminal), which presents BloombergNEF’s long-term energy and climate scenarios for the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The Economic Transition Scenario (ETS) – which models a transition led by market forces, and is our base case – is lower than our forecasts (Figure 2). Solar worldwide in the ETS reaches 8.9TW by 2035, generating 23% of world electricity, while our mid scenario is 10.7TW. Even the Net Zero Scenario (NZS), a considerably more ambitious one for renewables, only builds 11.4TW of solar by 2035, generating 27% of the world’s electricity, and then reaches 30.8TW for 40% of world electricity by 2050."

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 29

Here's the BNEF PV forecast for 2Q 2026. Still 50.5GW of buffer for 2026, which can absorb a fair amount of small markets growing. We cut the China annual estimate by 11GW(DC) which makes a big hole.

Chart showing new build PV, historicals and forecast, by country. The world total was 655GW(DC) in 2025 and 640GW(DC) in 2026, after which the global market resumes slow growth driven mainly by the buffer capacity (ie, unknown / unallocated markets such as African countries, which we cover individually but have no confidence in our ability to identify booms).

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 22

So far so good: excuse the horrible picture. I have a pen set up outside my office window so he doesn't feel abandoned but so that he and the adults can get used to each other. He has a hot water bottle in the bucket to cuddle with because the mornings are chilly.

A photo from the author's office window in the basement. There are several layers of heavy bars, but can be seen that there is a gosling outside on grass in a predator-protection pen, chatting to the adult geese who are loose in the garden.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 20

First full day and he wants to cuddle everything. Including the baby, who is fascinated and wants to grab him. *sigh* I have extra grey hairs but we're doing okay.

Day-old gosling snuggling in the crook of the poster's arm.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 19

We are go. A little too much go, he is very keen to stagger off after the adults and while in a couple of weeks I shall let him, right now he would just die.

Photo of a new-hatched gosling meeting his very interested father.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 19

Exciting times in the incubator as the single fertile egg this year hatches. (Single gosling is not good, but hopefully we can get it out with the adults asap).

A photo of a goose egg hatching in an incubator.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 6

Yeah, in the old days I would have taken two days for the event and likely taken the train back. But now I have responsibilities (one pictured) and don't want to drop them on the head of @bjoernstats.bsky.social for longer than necessary.

A fat fairhaired baby sitting under a tree.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· May 1

Climbed up to the Sälischlössli on the way home from dropping the car off at the garage; Olten's looking good on a sunny May 1. Also saw a black woodpecker on the way down.

Photo of the undistinguished Swiss city of Olten from a nearby hill.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Apr 28

Not really the point of this article but I can't believe the editors let us use 'plain vanilla photovoltaics (PV)' to refer to solar without storage.

A screenshot of a BloombergNEF article, including a chart of a load duration curve showing that supplying a rising proportion of hours of the year with solar and storage goes up slowly to about 95%, then more sharply, and goes asymptotic to 100%. This is specifically in Saudi Arabia where the sunshine is pretty constant.

Text says, "Solar is the cheapest source of electricity in many countries, including Saudi Arabia, where BloombergNEF estimates a levelized cost of plain vanilla photovoltaics (PV) at $15 per megawatt-hour.
This is not necessarily useful to run the ranks of data centers the country aims to host, though, as their high capex means they need to run nearly constantly to amortize that cost. Adding a battery can change that — especially in the Saudi climate, where solar generates a similar high amount of electricity nearly every day of the year. Batteries seldom sit either empty or full for multiple days.
BNEF estimates that PV and batteries could supply 99.5% availability for a baseload demand source like a data center, for a cost of just $70 per megawatt-hour (MWh) — more expensive than gas at $40-49/MWh, but not massively so."

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Apr 11

Spring is at least a week more advanced here in the UK than in Switzerland. Also, Center Parcs is pretty good for children aged 7+ years.

Early oak leaves against a blue, partly clouded April sky.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Apr 3

Probably no goslings this year. First incubator batch all infertile, so put some under Stiorra, who I thought was broody. But today she wasn't feeling it and spent the whole day sitting in the sun.

A grey and white goose named Stiorra on a nest. She has a missing beak tip as a result of a fox attack, but she does not let this interfere with any of her plans.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Apr 2

Relevant.

A pair of charts from BloombergNEF using data from Vortexa, showing the share of global seaborne volumes of fossil fuels going through the Strait of Hormuz (about 22% for jet fuel, over 30% for crude oil) and the share of European Union supplies (nearly 50% for jet fuel).

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 27

Well this article about hermit crabs has made me sad this morning. I do feel that when you get to know any animal, no matter how humble, you will start to see it as interesting and special. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/m...

Text from the New York Times story, "Saving Hermit Crabs by Breeding them in the Suburbs".

"She began to see them in new ways. They are social animals that thrive in family groups. They require large spaces with hamster wheels for exercise, display distinct personalities and communicate with unique chirps. Like parrots and ball pythons, they can live 50 years.

“They’re voiceless, misunderstood, elegant, incredible creatures that nobody cares about,” Akers said in her makeshift lab, where bright aquariums line the walls. In one, Fernandina, a stately, purple, baseball-sized crab around 40 years old, unfurled herself from a coconut hut. “They live so long, they must have some knowledge or sentience.”

It pains Akers and her crab-loving friends that so many hermit crabs are denied the chance of a long life. Some store owners toss them out at the end of the beach season if they aren’t sold.

“It’s ingrained in that boardwalk mentality that the crab is for the summer,” said Stacy Griffith Wodicker, of Fairfield, Ill. Her organization, the Land Hermit Crab Owners Society (motto: “Good Friends in a Pinch”) helps rehome unwanted pet crabs."

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 22

Uh oh, the baby no longer stays where I put him.

A sandy-haired fat baby on the floor, next to a mat suitable for laying a baby on. He has clearly rolled himself off.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 12

Nooooo!

A screenshot of the author's battery control app, Sonnen. It shows a battery 100% full, 3.4kW coming from the solar panels, the house consuming 0.3kW and 3.1kW going to the grid (with very little compensation).

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 12

They're really not very photogenic right now, and I haven't been spending enough time with them because I have a seven-month-old baby, but here's a somewhat old one.

Five geese eating spring cabbage from a hand.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 4

BNEF's forecasts for solar build over time. We drastically* underpredicted what China would deploy in 2023 and 2024, and the effect of Russia invading Ukraine in 2022. We cut forecasts in late 2025 because the long-expected cannibalization is biting hard. But now there is a new fossil fuel squeeze.

A BloombergNEF chart by Jenny Chase's team, showing solar build forecasts over time for selected quarters since 2011. In 2011, we only had two-year forecasts and they were flattish at 30-40GW/year; over the years, these forecasts drift upwards and generally are lower than what actually happened. In 2021 we started doing forecasts to 2030, and they were also flattish, though also hilariously drift upwards. In 2024 we expected solar build to rise from just under 600GW, to about 850GW in 2030; as of 1Q 2026, we cut this slightly in the long run.

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 3

Victory! This is BNEF's new definition of long-duration storage, from Yiyi Zhou's 2026 Long Duration Storage report (paywall: www.bnef.com/insights/38819 )

A screenshot of BNEF's 2026 Long-Duration Storage report. It reads, "Long-duration energy storage definition and technology coverage
While there is no universally accepted definition of LDES, BNEF defines it as energy storage technologies in which the cost and scale of energy capacity (GWh) are largely decoupled from those of power capacity (GW).
This report focuses on novel LDES technologies, excluding solutions such as conventional pumped hydro. We also exclude chemical-based solutions here as BNEF covers this sector separately. Lithium-ion batteries are excluded from this analysis, as they are generally
classified as short-duration storage technologies. For thermal storage, we restrict our scope to power‑based projects, excluding those designed solely for thermal output. For more on LDES
definitions across key markets, see A.1"

Jenny Chase@solarchase· Mar 3

Oh, when will my husband come home from work (battery is at 97% charge and if he doesn't plug the car in soon we'll be throwing away electricity. I already baked a three-goose-egg quiche).