[Interview] How Faze1 Used Data to Acquire a 5kW Residential Solar Customer for $0.25/watt This is the story of how Faze1 learned how to acquire a 5kW residential solar customer in Massachusetts for $1,250 or $0.25/watt. This is about 50% lower than the $0.49/watt that is typically referred to for average residential customer acquisition… Continue reading “[Interview] How Faze1 Used Data to Acquire a 5kW Residential Solar Customer for $0.25/watt”
5+ Trends that will Drive the Growth of the Hydronic Industry in the Next 3 Years: A 30-Minute Conversion with John Siegenthaler There are a variety of forces changing the dynamics of the hydronic heating and renewable thermal industries that were not happening five years ago. While hydronic distribution is still attractive for similar technical reasons that it was five years ago—comfort,… Continue reading “5+ Trends that will Drive the Growth of the Hydronic Industry in the Next 3 Years: A 30-Minute Conversion with John Siegenthaler”
[30 Minute Interview] Why SREC Markets Will Grow in a Post-ITC Solar World + Other Trends in Commercial Solar Finance All eyes are on the reduction or expiration of the 30 percent federal solar tax credit (ITC). While it’s the prime goal of SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association) to maintain the federal ITC, some have argued explicitly that it’s time to… Continue reading “[30 Minute Interview] Why SREC Markets Will Grow in a Post-ITC Solar World + Other Trends in Commercial Solar Finance”
50 Minutes of Video Answering 5 Questions on Finding, Pitching, Managing Solar Tax Equity Investors This event has already happened. Please scroll down to see the recording and read the answers to the questions. This week our focus has turned to a question that everyone wants answered. Investors, investor, investors! Everyone needs more capital for projects,… Continue reading “50 Minutes of Video Answering 5 Questions on Finding, Pitching, Managing Solar Tax Equity Investors”
Advice from a $20MM Solar PV Investor for Commercial Solar Installers = Focus on a Niche, Be Fast, and Standardize your Operations This article is part of a series of tutorials, interviews and definitions around commercial solar financing. If you need to learn more about solar finance, click here to test drive our Solar MBA. In the Solar MBA students will complete financial… Continue reading “Advice from a $20MM Solar PV Investor for Commercial Solar Installers = Focus on a Niche, Be Fast, and Standardize your Operations”
Free 26 Minute Lesson on Performing Heat Loss Calculations for Net Zero Energy Homes Calculating heat loss, and designing for minimal heat loss, is absolutely critical to designing and building net zero energy home or to passive house standards. Watch this 26 minute video lesson, from Marc Rosenbaum’s Zero Net Energy Homes course to… Continue reading “Free 26 Minute Lesson on Performing Heat Loss Calculations for Net Zero Energy Homes”
Full Case Study of 8 Net Zero Energy Homes The following post is a case study of 8 Net Zero Energy Homes that were designed by South Mountain Company (SMC). SMC’s Marc Rosenbaum is teaching a class on Net Zero Energy Design that will give you all of the… Continue reading “Full Case Study of 8 Net Zero Energy Homes”
Chris LaForge on Load Analysis for Battery-Based Solar Projects [Video] ISPQ Master trainer and solar legend Christopher LaForge is teaching a class on designing battery based solar PV systems. The capstone project for the class is design a complete battery based solar PV system. This is an intensive six-week training… Continue reading “Chris LaForge on Load Analysis for Battery-Based Solar Projects [Video]”
How to Design Homes to be Solar PV Ready Many homeowners might be building a new home or doing renovations and they want solar, but not right now. The following is a guest post from Jamie Leef, an expert builder and solar installer at S+H Construction that will be… Continue reading “How to Design Homes to be Solar PV Ready”
3 Reasons Why Education Technology Is Needed to Save the World: Low Cost, High Speed, Very High Quality This is the first, in what may become, a lot of video articles. In some ways writing is the best medium for clear and concise communication (although I’m a poor writer), I also think are times when video is a… Continue reading “3 Reasons Why Education Technology Is Needed to Save the World: Low Cost, High Speed, Very High Quality”
5 Best Practices for Designing Online Courses This article is for businesses and instructors that want to understand best practices for designing online courses. It’s based on our experience training more than 8,000 students. Since 2011 all of our students have used online or blended learning. The… Continue reading “5 Best Practices for Designing Online Courses”
How Does An Online Learning Course Work? We can get a lot of questions about how exactly an online learning course works. This article outlines the 5 elements needed for an awesome online learning course. This article is for two people: Students that want to take a… Continue reading “How Does An Online Learning Course Work?”
[Proof Included] When and Why 100% Online Courses Are Better Than Face to Face Training The following is a capstone project completed at the end of a 100% online course. If you think online training courses are poor quality, think again. Read more in detail below. This article is for two specific people. 1. Students… Continue reading “[Proof Included] When and Why 100% Online Courses Are Better Than Face to Face Training”
6 Reasons Why A Course is a Better Online Training Tool Than Webinar Training This post outlines why, when you’re teaching advanced material online and you need to verify that the students have learned and implemented your material, courses are a better online training tool than webinar training. This article is from HeatSpring’s Online… Continue reading “6 Reasons Why A Course is a Better Online Training Tool Than Webinar Training”
50% Off Solar Training for Massachusetts Based Employees and Companies, up to $3,000 per Employee and $30,000 per Company This article is quick, but awesome! If you’re a Massachusetts company and looking to train employees on solar, you can apply for a workforce training grants and get 50% off, 3 HeatSpring trainings. This is for companies that need to… Continue reading “50% Off Solar Training for Massachusetts Based Employees and Companies, up to $3,000 per Employee and $30,000 per Company”
How We Financed a 13kW Solar Project on a Church in Massachusetts The following is a guest post by Fred Paris, the instructor of our Solar PV Installer Boot Camp Training + NABCEP Entry Level Exam Prep. Fred tells the story of how he worked with members of a church to finance… Continue reading “How We Financed a 13kW Solar Project on a Church in Massachusetts”
“If Banks Only Understood Solar, My Commercial Solar Business Would Grow” We’ve had over 800 people download our commercial solar PV finance model. If you haven’t, you can download the Commercial Solar Model here. When our readers, students and alumni download it, we ask them what the is the #1 obstalce… Continue reading ““If Banks Only Understood Solar, My Commercial Solar Business Would Grow””
Solar PV Web Marketing Practices Needed to Beat SolarCity + the Big Guys It’s clear that the bottlenecks to the solar PV industry are become less and less technical (though technical challenges still exist), and more about more about finance, sales and marketings. What does this mean? The companies that are the best… Continue reading “Solar PV Web Marketing Practices Needed to Beat SolarCity + the Big Guys”
The Impact of SREC Value Assumptions on Commercial Solar PV Project IRRs Calculating the the un-levered (no debt), internal rate of return (IRR) of a commercial solar PV project is key to selling the project to the property owner, or gain investors on board for financing. If you’re still using the term… Continue reading “The Impact of SREC Value Assumptions on Commercial Solar PV Project IRRs”
HeatSpring is Building the Largest Library of Free Clean Energy Product Training to Get Manufactures in Front of Contractors All Manufactures know that they need product training Everyone needs to get up to speed on how to use specific products. Every product is a little bit different and getting distributors and contractors to really understand a product makes them… Continue reading “HeatSpring is Building the Largest Library of Free Clean Energy Product Training to Get Manufactures in Front of Contractors”