What Does It Take to Level Up in Solar + Storage Operations and Maintenance? Amanda Bybee has spent years building the systems, standards, and training that keep solar and storage assets running. As CEO of the Amicus O&M Cooperative, the creator of the Tech 1 and Tech 2 courses, she knows exactly what separates… Continue reading “What Does It Take to Level Up in Solar + Storage Operations and Maintenance?”
One Number That Can Zero Out Your Entire Storage Tax Credit Many people building out energy storage projects in 2026 are focused on the headline numbers: the 30% base ITC, the domestic content adder, the energy community bonus. It’s true that math is genuinely exciting. It’s worth noting that there’s a… Continue reading “One Number That Can Zero Out Your Entire Storage Tax Credit”
New Course: Basics of Commissioning on Utility-Scale Solar Commissioning is where a solar construction site becomes a power plant. It’s also where schedule delays get expensive fast, defects cost more to fix than they did during construction, and the utility, owner’s engineer, lender’s engineer, and equipment vendors all… Continue reading “New Course: Basics of Commissioning on Utility-Scale Solar”
Wes Kennedy Just Updated “Energy Storage Finance.” Here’s What’s New. The energy storage market moves fast, and lucky for us, HeatSpring instructor Wes Kennedy has kept pace. The U.S. installed a record 57 gigawatt-hours of new battery storage capacity in 2025, a 29% increase over the previous year, and the… Continue reading “Wes Kennedy Just Updated “Energy Storage Finance.” Here’s What’s New.”
What Happens When AI Writes Battery Software HeatSpring instructor Peter Gruenbaum spent years writing software that tells batteries when to charge and when to discharge on utility-scale energy projects. When he built his course on battery energy management systems for HeatSpring, he leaned into AI as a… Continue reading “What Happens When AI Writes Battery Software “
New Course: SCADA Communication Systems for Utility-Scale Solar The U.S. added 34.7 GW of utility-scale solar capacity in 2025, according to SEIA and Wood Mackenzie’s Solar Market Insight Year in Review. That’s a lot of plants being commissioned, handed over, and turned over to O&M teams, many of… Continue reading “New Course: SCADA Communication Systems for Utility-Scale Solar”
New Course: Pre-Construction in Utility-Scale Solar The subcontractors you select, the contracts you put in place, and the commercial foundations you establish before construction starts will shape every aspect of project execution. A well-run pre-construction (pre-con) process is one of the highest-leverage things an EPC can… Continue reading “New Course: Pre-Construction in Utility-Scale Solar”
New Course: Owning the Customer Interconnection Experience Many people get introduced to interconnection the same way: someone hands them a stack of utility paperwork and says, we need these filed. So they do. They submit the applications. Then a problem comes up, and they realize there’s a… Continue reading “New Course: Owning the Customer Interconnection Experience”
New Course Announcement: Transformer Specification & Applications for Inverter-Based Resources As many residential solar designers move up into larger C&I and utility-scale projects, the work starts to look pretty different from a rooftop install. Transformer specification is one of those areas where the learning curve shows up fast and where… Continue reading “New Course Announcement: Transformer Specification & Applications for Inverter-Based Resources”
How the Future of DER Interconnection Could Mirror the Evolution of Booking a Flight The interconnection process can make or break a project. And yet, it’s difficult to tell exactly how bad the bottlenecks truly are. Distribution-level interconnection data is fragmented across more than 3,000 utilities regulated by 50 different states, with few central… Continue reading “How the Future of DER Interconnection Could Mirror the Evolution of Booking a Flight”
What is an Energy Market Forecaster for ESS? If a battery energy storage system is going to make money in a wholesale energy market, it needs to know something the market hasn’t told it yet – where prices are headed. That’s the job of an energy market forecaster.… Continue reading “What is an Energy Market Forecaster for ESS?”
What is a Battery Simulator? If you’re building software for battery energy storage systems, you can’t just plug into a real battery every time you want to test something. That’s expensive, potentially damaging, and frankly impractical. That’s where battery simulators come in. In Peter Gruenbaum’s… Continue reading “What is a Battery Simulator? “
New Course: Software for In Front of the Meter Battery Systems According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, developers plan to add 24 GW of utility-scale battery storage to the grid in 2026 – on top of the record 15 GW added in 2025 and more than 40 GW over the… Continue reading “New Course: Software for In Front of the Meter Battery Systems”
New Course: Energy Storage Finance Energy storage has crossed a threshold. The technology is mature, costs have come down dramatically, and customers are asking for it. Now the real work is figuring out how to structure a deal that actually pencils. Wes Kennedy has spent… Continue reading “New Course: Energy Storage Finance”
Why Just Adding Batteries Won’t Solve Your Interconnection Problems When a solar project gets denied interconnection approval due to grid constraints, the natural impulse is to find a workaround. Can’t export to the grid? Can’t you just add batteries and keep everything on-site? If you’re not sending power back… Continue reading “Why Just Adding Batteries Won’t Solve Your Interconnection Problems “
Why DC-Coupled Solar Plus Storage Is Finally Ready to Take Off For years, DC-coupling was the way off-grid systems worked. Then AC-coupling took over. Now, interconnection bottlenecks and new tax incentives are bringing DC-coupling back – this time at commercial scale. HeatSpring instructor Wes Kennedy walks through the economics and engineering:… Continue reading “Why DC-Coupled Solar Plus Storage Is Finally Ready to Take Off”
How the Shift From EVs to Data Centers Is Reshaping the Battery Market The battery market is experiencing a dramatic shift – and it’s creating opportunities for energy storage professionals. HeatSpring instructor Wes Kennedy breaks down the technology trends reshaping the industry: how EV manufacturing overcapacity is driving battery prices down, why Ford… Continue reading “How the Shift From EVs to Data Centers Is Reshaping the Battery Market”
Energy Storage in 2026: Policy Changes, Market Reality, and Long-Term Outlook If you’re wondering how 2025 policy changes are affecting energy storage demand, this conversation is for you. Wes Kennedy, instructor of Comprehensive Solar Plus Storage, walks through the key dynamics shaping the market: why storage maintained federal incentives while solar… Continue reading “Energy Storage in 2026: Policy Changes, Market Reality, and Long-Term Outlook”
How Do Battery Systems Maintain Grid Frequency? When a heat wave hits and entire cities crank up their air conditioning simultaneously, we rarely think about what keeps our electrical grid humming at exactly the right frequency. But grid frequency is critical – too high or too low,… Continue reading “How Do Battery Systems Maintain Grid Frequency?”
How Does Energy Bidding Work for Battery Systems in Power Markets? Understanding how battery systems participate in power markets can seem complex at first, but the fundamentals are surprisingly straightforward. The basics of energy bidding are essential knowledge for anyone working in the utility-scale energy storage space – from entrepreneurs and… Continue reading “How Does Energy Bidding Work for Battery Systems in Power Markets?”