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”
New Course: Data Center Essentials for Executives This week we’ve launched our first data center course, offered through Datacenter Dynamics. Jon Koomey is the instructor, and we’re all really excited to have him teaching. I asked Jon to talk about his inspiration for the course. Here’s what… Continue reading “New Course: Data Center Essentials for Executives”
Community Solar 101 There’s been a lot of buzz about community solar lately. While the amount of investment in community solar projects is a fraction of the investment of the entire solar industry, there are a few leaders who recognize the incredible potential… Continue reading “Community Solar 101”
Three Keys to Developing Bankable Solar Projects – Lessons from Developing 150 MW+ of Solar Projects Thanks to Chris Lord and Keith Cronin for providing all of the insights in this article. Chris and Keith teach our Solar Executive MBA course (the next session starts on September 15th). Together, they have advised investors, owners, and other… Continue reading “Three Keys to Developing Bankable Solar Projects – Lessons from Developing 150 MW+ of Solar Projects”
New England Geothermal Policy Update, Review, and Next Steps: Massachusetts This is the first piece on geothermal lobbying efforts that I’m completing in addition to other industry communications and research efforts. In the next few weeks, I’ll be publishing information on the current state of policy and next steps in… Continue reading “New England Geothermal Policy Update, Review, and Next Steps: Massachusetts”
Finance 101 for Solar PV Professionals In order to sell solar PV projects, especially commercial projects, you need to understand finance. Understanding finance will allow you to calculate and communicate the financial benefit of a system to your client. Download the Commercial Solar Finance Model Read… Continue reading “Finance 101 for Solar PV Professionals”