Driving Down Solar Costs: A 70% Reduction in 5 Years Launched by the Department of Energy in February 2011, the SunShot Initiative was designed to make solar energy cost-competitive by 2020. In 2010, the cost of one solar watt was $3.80. The SunShot project was attempting to reduce solar costs to $1 per… Continue reading “Driving Down Solar Costs: A 70% Reduction in 5 Years”
62 Million People (& Counting!) Living in Places with 100% Renewable Energy Targets The idea of communities, cities, states, or countries being powered by 100% renewable energy used to be perceived as fantasy. Enter the Go 100% Renewable Energy Project, which aims to perpetuate the clean energy movement by creating a revolutionary online… Continue reading “62 Million People (& Counting!) Living in Places with 100% Renewable Energy Targets”
zHome: Setting a National Net Zero Energy and Green Building Precedent Almost ten years ago, Built Green, an environmentally-friendly residential building program of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, began a project to develop the first net energy townhome complex in the United States. The project was created… Continue reading “zHome: Setting a National Net Zero Energy and Green Building Precedent”
What’s Going On With Global Renewable Energy Investment? From a macro perspective, renewable energy technologies seem to be a relatively safe bet for investors… 2015 hit a world record for global renewables investment despite challenging conditions, solar and wind have been deemed “unstoppable,”1 jobs in this sector seem… Continue reading “What’s Going On With Global Renewable Energy Investment?”
Talking Energy Policy with Industry Leaders Join GRID Alternatives for the Women in Energy Policy webcast Leading women in the field of clean energy policy will discuss their career paths, projects they’re currently working on and the growing role of women in traditionally male-dominated fields. This lecture… Continue reading “Talking Energy Policy with Industry Leaders”
Best Practices in Green Roof Policy Implementation Curious about best policy implementation practices in the Green Roof revolution? When populations grow, how can a city expand with existing infrastructure? Do green roofs work for all communities? How do we manage stormwater? What role does federal funding play?… Continue reading “Best Practices in Green Roof Policy Implementation”
Solar Women Summer Series: Marketing the Solar Lifestyle Glenna Wiseman is the founding principal of Identity3, a marketing organization on a mission to “empower a sustainable world”, specializing in online/media marketing as well as event and Public Relations work. Wiseman has been an executive marketing professional in the solar… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Marketing the Solar Lifestyle”
Solar Women Summer Series: Social Meets Solar Today’s Solar Women Summer Series piece features Jane Pulaski, Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s (IREC) Web and Social Communications guru. In 2010, HeatSpring Magazine featured one of Jane’s pieces about IREC’s 2010 State by State Solar Licensing Database. Today, Jane joins us to discuss her… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Social Meets Solar”
Solar Women Summer Series: Getting Involved with the D.O.E. SunShot Initiative The teams at HeatSpring and RenewableEnergyWorld.com are excited to kick off Solar Women Summer Series, a series of interviews featuring women who have taken HeatSpring’s solar courses and other interesting women doing important work in the solar industry. This week we feature Dr. Lidija Sekaric, Director of… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Getting Involved with the D.O.E. SunShot Initiative”
Interview: How to Create a Holistic Built Environment – Transportation, Solar, and More We reached out to Ryan C.C. Chin, Ph.D., the Managing Director and Research Scientist of MIT Media Lab’s Changing Places group, to learn about the initiatives his group is working on to reshape cities into more holistic systems and how the HeatSpring community of contractors,… Continue reading “Interview: How to Create a Holistic Built Environment – Transportation, Solar, and More”
Solar Leases vs. Solar Loans vs. Utility Rates vs. Cash Purchase (Used with permission. Source: http://cinnamonsolar.com/about-us/lease-borrow-or-buy/) The graph above is one of my favorites about the residential solar industry. It explains exactly why residential solar leasing is dying. It was created by Barry Cinnamon from Cinnamon Solar as a sales tool… Continue reading “Solar Leases vs. Solar Loans vs. Utility Rates vs. Cash Purchase”
Forest and Biomass Grants: Meet the Man Who’s Helped Companies Acquire $2.5 Million+ The article below is an interview with Craig Rawlings, President & CEO of the Forest Business Network (FBN). Craig has more than 30 years of experience in the forest products industry. As a “serial entrepreneur,” Craig has started and run several… Continue reading “Forest and Biomass Grants: Meet the Man Who’s Helped Companies Acquire $2.5 Million+”
Great Expectations: The Ten Most Common Mistakes of Solar Businesses and How to Avoid Them This article is a guest post from Bill Rever, Owner and Principal at WB Rever Associates. Bill spent ten years in senior strategic roles at BP Solar where he helped launch new products and companies. He’s advised some of the… Continue reading “Great Expectations: The Ten Most Common Mistakes of Solar Businesses and How to Avoid Them”
Part 2 – Solar Development Risks 101 This article is the second part of a three-part series about how to identify land that is suitable for developing a ground-mount solar project in Massachusetts. The inspiration for this post is my personal interest in acquiring land to lease to… Continue reading “Part 2 – Solar Development Risks 101”
Nanoracks Co-founder Teaching New Commercial Space Course We’re proud to announce that Charles Miller, Co-founder of Nanoracks, will be teaching our “Commercial Space Executive Leadership Training” that begins on Monday, February 2nd. This in-depth program has been in development for more than a year. The goal is… Continue reading “Nanoracks Co-founder Teaching New Commercial Space Course”
[Interview] Grid Storage Economics and Policy 101 There has been a huge amount of buzz about storage lately with more press hitting every week. SCE signed 250MW worth of contracts, Sandia is investing in battery reliability studies, the Navy is investing in micro-grids, Texas is evaluating storage, and New Jersey has issued… Continue reading “[Interview] Grid Storage Economics and Policy 101”
[New Course] Renewable Energy Policy Master Class One of my favorite memories of any conference I’ve ever attended was watching Jigar Shah on a panel at NESEA’s Building Energy Conference. A question came from the audience about why he pushes solar over building efficiency, when building efficiency… Continue reading “[New Course] Renewable Energy Policy Master Class”
Heating with Biomass: It’s Not Just About the Boiler… This article is a guest post by John Siegenthaler, Principal at Appropriate Designs and expert instructor with HeatSpring. John’s 10-week online course, Hydronic-Based Biomass Heating Systems, teaches engineers, heating contractors, and installers how to design and install highly-efficient biomass heating systems.… Continue reading “Heating with Biomass: It’s Not Just About the Boiler…”
Apply for HeatSpring’s Online Solar Startup Alley* Competition – Deadline: December 12th *Startups include small businesses and new ventures with revenues of less than $1 million. I’m really excited to announce our online solar startup competition. We created the competition because we noticed within our 6-week Solar Startup Accelerator that the single largest… Continue reading “Apply for HeatSpring’s Online Solar Startup Alley* Competition – Deadline: December 12th”
2015 Entrepreneur’s Guide to Employee Health Coverage Q: “What does your small business do about employee health insurance?” I surveyed twenty businesses with fewer than twenty-five employees because we’re trying to figure out what to do at HeatSpring. The U.S. health insurance market is in the throes… Continue reading “2015 Entrepreneur’s Guide to Employee Health Coverage”