Why This Long-Time Solar Advocate is Having So Much Fun “We are at the leapfrog stage in renewable energy. This is a paradigm shift. This is the answer, the holy grail,” says Christopher LaForge, co-instructor of two new courses from Heatspring, Utility Scale Commercial & Industrial Storage 101 and Utility… Continue reading “Why This Long-Time Solar Advocate is Having So Much Fun”
Marc Shackelford-Rowell Awarded Genius Grant for Speeding Up Solar Permits in Philadelphia Please join us in congratulating Marc Shackelford-Rowell, the third Genius Grant award recipient for 2021. Marc identified a problem when he joined the solar industry – the residential permitting process takes too long. So what did Marc do? He helped… Continue reading “Marc Shackelford-Rowell Awarded Genius Grant for Speeding Up Solar Permits in Philadelphia”
What Happened in Texas? February 2021 Power Outages At its highest level, electric power elevates us in so many ways. It helps us build our awareness of local and global events, understand the experiences and perspectives of others, and collaborate with others to enact change. It is a… Continue reading “What Happened in Texas? February 2021 Power Outages”
How to Get into the Renewable Energy Industry Jack Bishop of Portland, Oregon recently graduated from Tulane University with hopes of entering the renewable energy industry and doing his part to address environmental challenges. While he had taken numerous courses related to the industry, he didn’t know where… Continue reading “How to Get into the Renewable Energy Industry”
Solar ITC Extended, Huge Public Market Investment in Solar: What it Means for 2021 The solar industry’s year ended with good news for 2021, and other positive headlines may be coming. Not only did the industry see high public market investment in 2020. The solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) was extended. “The solar industry… Continue reading “Solar ITC Extended, Huge Public Market Investment in Solar: What it Means for 2021”
Scalable (Near-Zero Energy) Multifamily Retrofits: A Case Study Here’s the backstory on “Scalable Multifamily Retrofits“, a new free course presented by Chris Benedict, Margo Valdes, and Ian Shapiro, offered in partnership with the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. Energiesprong and practitioners selected by RetrofitNY are developing standardized and scalable… Continue reading “Scalable (Near-Zero Energy) Multifamily Retrofits: A Case Study”
Solar O&M: Tips for Contractors, The Future of Solar & Workforce Development The solar industry is booming, and there’s a lot to keep track of. From system configuration to energy storage, O&M (Operations and Maintenance) and beyond, the job of Franklin Beach Energy’s Managing Director Carter Wall is never really done. Sustainable woman Carter… Continue reading “Solar O&M: Tips for Contractors, The Future of Solar & Workforce Development”
Grow Your Green Building Skillset Online — From Design to Retrofits From building science to retrofits, energy modeling, smart homes, and beyond, HeatSpring offers a comprehensive marketplace of green building courses. Join your expert instructors for weeks of top notch technical training. Deep Energy Retrofits – Upgrade existing residential and commercial buildings… Continue reading “Grow Your Green Building Skillset Online — From Design to Retrofits”
Meet Solar Research Pro Paula Mints What do Australia, Indian Lands, and women’s shelters have in common…? While it may sound like the start of a bad joke, there’s actually a great – and lucrative – answer: solar power potential and solar market opportunities abound in… Continue reading “Meet Solar Research Pro Paula Mints”
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”