Modeling Solar Production Risk 101 – An Introduction to P50 and P90 Production Levels This article is part of a series of interviews, tutorials, and definitions around commercial solar financing that is leading up to the start of our next Solar MBA that starts on Monday September 15th. In the Solar MBA students will… Continue reading “Modeling Solar Production Risk 101 – An Introduction to P50 and P90 Production Levels”
Troubleshooting Condensing Boilers in Hydronic Systems – What is the System Doing? This a guest post from Roy Collver. Roy is a condensing boiler expert. Here’s what John Siegenthaler, author of “Modern Hydronic Heating,” says about Roy’s work: “When I have a detailed question about the inner operation of a modulating / condensing… Continue reading “Troubleshooting Condensing Boilers in Hydronic Systems – What is the System Doing?”
New Massachusetts Solar Bill H.4185 Would Destroy Community Solar Potential In the Commonwealth This is a guest post from Sam Rust from SRECTrade about new solar legislation in Massachusetts. (Editor Note: A note about the importance of community solar for lowering customer acquisition costs, something EVERYONE in the solar industry cares about. Everyone is… Continue reading “New Massachusetts Solar Bill H.4185 Would Destroy Community Solar Potential In the Commonwealth”
Designing Wood Gasification Boiler Protection Systems: T & ∆T Pumping: An application that leverage both strategies This is a guest article from John Siegenthaler. In the fall, John is teaching an advanced design course on Hydronic-Based Biomass Heating Systems. This is the most advanced and technically challenging biomass design course that you’ll find anywhere. The capstone… Continue reading “Designing Wood Gasification Boiler Protection Systems: T & ∆T Pumping: An application that leverage both strategies”
How to Normalize Energy Consumption For Weather Influences Using RETScreen ® Plus This is a guest post by Michael Ross from RER Energy Inc. Michael is teaching a 6-week, 30 hour class on Mastering RETScreen for Clean Energy Project Analysis. The class is capped at 50 students, and there are only 30… Continue reading “How to Normalize Energy Consumption For Weather Influences Using RETScreen ® Plus”
Free Floor Plan: 10 Ways Passive House Design is Different Than Normal Home Design If you want to download the floor plan, please scroll to the bottom of the article. This is a guest post by Mike Duclos. Mike is founder of The DEAP Energy Group, a firm providing a wide variety of deep energy… Continue reading “Free Floor Plan: 10 Ways Passive House Design is Different Than Normal Home Design”
How to Identify and Eliminate the 7 Forms of Waste in Residential Solar Installations This is a guest post by Pam Cargill. Pam is an expert at optimizing residential solar operations. She’s helped scale operations both at Alteris Renewables (now RGS Energy) and Sungevity. She knows all the secrets of the larger installers and… Continue reading “How to Identify and Eliminate the 7 Forms of Waste in Residential Solar Installations”
Robert Bean + HeatSpring = Integrated HVAC Engineering Training The way a building functions represents an incredibly complex intersection of numerous fields, including architecture, design, engineering, environmental and health sciences, and construction. As each field evolves, it becomes increasingly necessary, but also difficult, to understand how they are interrelated.… Continue reading “Robert Bean + HeatSpring = Integrated HVAC Engineering Training”
Learn how to Design and Build Best in Class Commercial Building Enclosures from Terry Brennan All commercial building enclosure designs are not created equal. All too often, critical factors like airflow, insulation, vapor barriers, condensation, longevity, construction cost, and time frame are not given proper consideration. This results in an underperforming structure, an unhappy client,… Continue reading “Learn how to Design and Build Best in Class Commercial Building Enclosures from Terry Brennan”
John Siegenthaler, Biomass Thermal Energy Council, and HeatSpring Launch Hydronic-Based Biomass Design Course Hydronics expert John Siegenthaler, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council (BTEC), and the online technical training experts at HeatSpring have teamed up to launch a 10-week online course: Hydronic-Based Biomass Design. The course starts on September 15th. The course is capped… Continue reading “John Siegenthaler, Biomass Thermal Energy Council, and HeatSpring Launch Hydronic-Based Biomass Design Course”
NESEA, Mike Duclos and HeatSpring Launch Passive House Design Training If you’re a professional in the building industry, you’ve probably heard of the growing Passive House movement. You may even be familiar with the basic principles. If you have clients who want to apply the Passive House standard to an… Continue reading “NESEA, Mike Duclos and HeatSpring Launch Passive House Design Training”
How to Use Cheap Sensors and Mobile Phones to Make People Care About Energy Waste Visibility of energy use is not enough to get people to change their actions, we still need to find a way to make people care to compel them to act. At last week’s Cleanweb Hackathon in Boston, teams focused on… Continue reading “How to Use Cheap Sensors and Mobile Phones to Make People Care About Energy Waste”
The Most Common Solar PPA Modeling Mistake, The Fix, and a Free Tool This article will address the most common error that developers and EPCs make when modeling commercial solar PPAs. The video below will discuss the problem, the solution, and provide a free tool you can download so you can work through… Continue reading “The Most Common Solar PPA Modeling Mistake, The Fix, and a Free Tool”
How to Price the Risk of Cash Equity vs Tax Equity Positions in Solar Partnership Flips This article is part of a series common topics and questions that professionals have about financing commercial solar projects. Chris Lord of CapIron provided some insights into pricing certain types of investor risk in partnership flips. Chris is a co-teacher… Continue reading “How to Price the Risk of Cash Equity vs Tax Equity Positions in Solar Partnership Flips”
How to Calculate the Buyout Price for Commercial Solar PPAs This article is part of a series tutorials, interviews and definitions around commercial solar financing that is leading up to the start of our next Solar MBA that starts on Monday September 15th. In the Solar MBA students will complete financial… Continue reading “How to Calculate the Buyout Price for Commercial Solar PPAs”
SolarPro, HeatSpring, Ryan Mayfield Launch Megawatt Solar Design Class The online technical training experts at HeatSpring have teamed up with photovoltaic design and instruction professional Ryan Mayfield and technical media specialists SolarPro to launch a 10-week online course in megawatt-scale solar PV system design. To learn more about the… Continue reading “SolarPro, HeatSpring, Ryan Mayfield Launch Megawatt Solar Design Class”
5 Keys for Greening Commercial Roofs Dr. Jim Hoff currently serves as vice president of research for the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing in Washington, D.C., and president of TEGNOS Research Inc., a consulting organization dedicated to expanding understanding of the building envelope. He’s also… Continue reading “5 Keys for Greening Commercial Roofs”
[Interview] How to Provide Solar Financing to Any Non-Profit Solar Project Larger Than 50kW Lee Barken and his team at Collective Sun have figured out the holy grail of commercial solar financing. Collective Sun can provide solar financing to non-profit solar projects from 50kW and up. Currently, they’re offering their product in California but… Continue reading “[Interview] How to Provide Solar Financing to Any Non-Profit Solar Project Larger Than 50kW”
5 Perspectives for Using Solar Subcontractors for Residential PV Installation This is a guest post by Fred Paris. Fred teaches our 6 week Solar Startup Accelerator where students get the tools (budgeting, planning, pricing, project management) and business plan they need to start new solar business or solar division within… Continue reading “5 Perspectives for Using Solar Subcontractors for Residential PV Installation”
Your Invitation –> NESEA Building Energy Trade Show Discount, Startup Alley, Building Energy Masters Series Meetup Next week is the Building Energy Conference. I’m going to be there, and there’s going to be a lot of fun things happening. I’ve gone to the NESEA show ever year since I was 16, and my buddy Gilbert from… Continue reading “Your Invitation –> NESEA Building Energy Trade Show Discount, Startup Alley, Building Energy Masters Series Meetup”