Using Solar to Heat – Net Metering Makes a Difference In the article below, Vaughan Woodruff, Expert Instructor, Solar Approaches to Radiant Heating, outlines a response to a student who recently asked a question regarding the use of solar electricity for heating and how advances in battery storage might impact the suitability of using… Continue reading “Using Solar to Heat – Net Metering Makes a Difference”
Solar Women Summer Series: Resources for the Solar Startup This week’s Solar Women Summer Series interview features Emily Kirsch, CEO and Co-Founder of SfunCube, the world’s only incubator and accelerator dedicated to solar. SfunCube is an epicenter of solar innovation that houses and provides resources for entrepreneurs working to spread solar with smart… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Resources for the Solar Startup”
Modeling Your Solar Project’s Cash Flows – When to Increase Granularity In this article, Chris Lord, expert instructor at HeatSpring, lawyer with deep banking experience, and the Managing Director of CapIron, Inc., outlines when it’s important for solar businesses to increase granularity in their solar project’s cash flow model. Key Takeaways: When… Continue reading “Modeling Your Solar Project’s Cash Flows – When to Increase Granularity”
Solar Women Summer Series: Finding Funding in Solar Our fifth Solar Women Summer Series interview (powered by RenewableEnergyWorld.com) features Sara Rafalson, Senior Associate at Sol Systems, a solar energy finance and investment firm with offices in D.C., San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Ms. Rafalson is also the President of… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Finding Funding in Solar”
Cool Infographic: Solar Power Taking the World By Storm Solar power energy is growing from a grassroots effort into a mainstream source of energy. What is causing this shift? The answer is almost everything. Here are a few key factors that are driving solar energy. Government: Globally, governments are… Continue reading “Cool Infographic: Solar Power Taking the World By Storm”
Solar Women Summer Series: The #1 Networking Organization for Women in Solar This week’s Solar Women Summer Series interview (powered by RenewableEnergyWorld.com) features Kristen Nicole, Founder and Executive Director at Women in Solar Energy (WISE). Kristen Nicole is a solar industry and power systems professional. Her research focus has been on strategies to… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: The #1 Networking Organization for Women in Solar”
Solar Women Summer Series: The Solar Business Skillset Our third Solar Women Summer Series interview (powered by RenewableEnergyWorld.com) features Pamela Cargill, Principal at Chaolysti, a strategic consulting firm that helps residential solar installers operate more effectively. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chaolysti aims to massively scale the deployment of… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: The Solar Business Skillset”
3 Tax and ITC Considerations for Your Solar Project On the Solar Executive MBA Training Discussion Board… Key Takeaways: Depreciation benefits tend to be far lower than the value of the solar investment tax credit (ITC) If an asset is deemed an “integral” part of the solar PV system then it can… Continue reading “3 Tax and ITC Considerations for Your Solar Project”
Solar Women Summer Series: Find A Mentor! It’s week two of our Solar Women Summer Series! Last week we featured Lidija Sekaric, Director of the Technology to Market Program at the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. This week, we’re excited to feature Tamika Jacques, Director of Workforce Development Programs at… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Find A Mentor!”
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”
3 Reasons Your PV System Load Profile is Overinflated and How to Fix It The article below is a discussion from our course, Batteries in Solar PV Systems, led by Christopher LaForge. Christopher LaForge is the CEO of Great Northern Solar and a NABCEP certified photovoltaic installer. He has been designing, specifying, and installing systems… Continue reading “3 Reasons Your PV System Load Profile is Overinflated and How to Fix It”
How to Take the IGSHPA Geothermal Certification Exam This is a short video explaining how the IGSHPA Geothermal Installer Certification exam works. The process has changed significantly in the past year – for the better – and we’re excited about how easy it is for students to take… Continue reading “How to Take the IGSHPA Geothermal Certification Exam”
Interview: Battery Expert Christopher LaForge on the Tesla Powerwall The debut of the Tesla Powerwall has made quite a splash in many circles. Claiming to outperform current battery systems for solar, it has the potential to make a large impact on the storage side of the production of solar… Continue reading “Interview: Battery Expert Christopher LaForge on the Tesla Powerwall”
4 Reasons Commissioning on Larger Solar PV Systems is Important The article below is an excerpt from the discussion board of our last Solar Executive MBA cohort. Student A and Student B are interested in learning more about: The importance of commissioning on larger solar systems The potential volatility of SRECs… Continue reading “4 Reasons Commissioning on Larger Solar PV Systems is Important”
Interview: Financial Models and Sample Documents for Commercial Solar Projects I recently spoke with Chris Lord and Keith Cronin about some of the financial modeling tools and sample documents that they frequently use to teach solar professionals working on commercial projects. Chris and Keith, who co-teach our Solar Executive MBA… Continue reading “Interview: Financial Models and Sample Documents for Commercial Solar Projects”
The Top Challenges with Technical Qualification for Commercial Solar Projects This article will provide a snapshot of the current technical challenges that engineers and project managers face with the technical qualification of solar projects. Project qualification is a critical part of the commercial solar sales process. It’s where sales, technical… Continue reading “The Top Challenges with Technical Qualification for Commercial Solar Projects”
NABCEP Certification: How To Get It, What It’s Worth This is a presentation I gave this week in Cleveland at the ElectroExpo. The audience was pretty small, just fifteen folks attended, so it turned into an intimate conversation rather than a formal presentation. An honest discussion about business, renewable… Continue reading “NABCEP Certification: How To Get It, What It’s Worth”
Online IGSHPA Geothermal Certification Course Now Available Between 2007 and 2011, we helped certify several thousand geothermal installers at 3-day workshops around the country. Oil and gas were expensive, and the industry was going through a big growth spurt. Over the past several years that growth has… Continue reading “Online IGSHPA Geothermal Certification Course Now Available”
Why We Chose HeatSpring as Our Educational Partner Mark Eatherton, Executive Director, Radiant Professionals Alliance authored the below article. We had a chance to see Mark at the ASHRAE conference a few weeks ago and when we told him we’d love to feature him in HeatSpring Magazine, he sent us… Continue reading “Why We Chose HeatSpring as Our Educational Partner”