How to Identify and Eliminate the 7 Forms of Waste in Residential Solar Installations This is a guest post by Pam Cargill. Pam is an expert at optimizing residential solar operations. She’s helped scale operations both at Alteris Renewables (now RGS Energy) and Sungevity. She knows all the secrets of the larger installers and… Continue reading “How to Identify and Eliminate the 7 Forms of Waste in Residential Solar Installations”
Robert Bean + HeatSpring = Integrated HVAC Engineering Training The way a building functions represents an incredibly complex intersection of numerous fields, including architecture, design, engineering, environmental and health sciences, and construction. As each field evolves, it becomes increasingly necessary, but also difficult, to understand how they are interrelated.… Continue reading “Robert Bean + HeatSpring = Integrated HVAC Engineering Training”
Learn how to Design and Build Best in Class Commercial Building Enclosures from Terry Brennan All commercial building enclosure designs are not created equal. All too often, critical factors like airflow, insulation, vapor barriers, condensation, longevity, construction cost, and time frame are not given proper consideration. This results in an underperforming structure, an unhappy client,… Continue reading “Learn how to Design and Build Best in Class Commercial Building Enclosures from Terry Brennan”
John Siegenthaler, Biomass Thermal Energy Council, and HeatSpring Launch Hydronic-Based Biomass Design Course Hydronics expert John Siegenthaler, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council (BTEC), and the online technical training experts at HeatSpring have teamed up to launch a 10-week online course: Hydronic-Based Biomass Design. The course starts on September 15th. The course is capped… Continue reading “John Siegenthaler, Biomass Thermal Energy Council, and HeatSpring Launch Hydronic-Based Biomass Design Course”
NESEA, Mike Duclos and HeatSpring Launch Passive House Design Training If you’re a professional in the building industry, you’ve probably heard of the growing Passive House movement. You may even be familiar with the basic principles. If you have clients who want to apply the Passive House standard to an… Continue reading “NESEA, Mike Duclos and HeatSpring Launch Passive House Design Training”
How to Use Cheap Sensors and Mobile Phones to Make People Care About Energy Waste Visibility of energy use is not enough to get people to change their actions, we still need to find a way to make people care to compel them to act. At last week’s Cleanweb Hackathon in Boston, teams focused on… Continue reading “How to Use Cheap Sensors and Mobile Phones to Make People Care About Energy Waste”
The Most Common Solar PPA Modeling Mistake, The Fix, and a Free Tool This article will address the most common error that developers and EPCs make when modeling commercial solar PPAs. The video below will discuss the problem, the solution, and provide a free tool you can download so you can work through… Continue reading “The Most Common Solar PPA Modeling Mistake, The Fix, and a Free Tool”
Interview with Cory Honeyman, GTM Research Solar Analyst, on Emerging Trends in Residential and Commercial Solar In this interview, GTM Research Solar Analyst Cory Honeyman provides some background on the U.S. Solar Market Insight Report and discusses trends in residential and commercial solar, including hard costs, important skills for salespeople, state incentives, common misconceptions, and financing.… Continue reading “Interview with Cory Honeyman, GTM Research Solar Analyst, on Emerging Trends in Residential and Commercial Solar”
How to Price the Risk of Cash Equity vs Tax Equity Positions in Solar Partnership Flips This article is part of a series common topics and questions that professionals have about financing commercial solar projects. Chris Lord of CapIron provided some insights into pricing certain types of investor risk in partnership flips. Chris is a co-teacher… Continue reading “How to Price the Risk of Cash Equity vs Tax Equity Positions in Solar Partnership Flips”
How to Calculate the Buyout Price for Commercial Solar PPAs This article is part of a series tutorials, interviews and definitions around commercial solar financing that is leading up to the start of our next Solar MBA that starts on Monday September 15th. In the Solar MBA students will complete financial… Continue reading “How to Calculate the Buyout Price for Commercial Solar PPAs”
SolarPro, HeatSpring, Ryan Mayfield Launch Megawatt Solar Design Class The online technical training experts at HeatSpring have teamed up with photovoltaic design and instruction professional Ryan Mayfield and technical media specialists SolarPro to launch a 10-week online course in megawatt-scale solar PV system design. To learn more about the… Continue reading “SolarPro, HeatSpring, Ryan Mayfield Launch Megawatt Solar Design Class”
Introduction to the new HeatSpring and High Performance Building Institute The new HeatSpring website is now live, and the High Performance Building Institute is your new source for information and courses on high performance building and clean energy. If you only have 15 seconds, read this: Our new HeatSpring website… Continue reading “Introduction to the new HeatSpring and High Performance Building Institute”
5 Keys for Greening Commercial Roofs Dr. Jim Hoff currently serves as vice president of research for the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing in Washington, D.C., and president of TEGNOS Research Inc., a consulting organization dedicated to expanding understanding of the building envelope. He’s also… Continue reading “5 Keys for Greening Commercial Roofs”
[Interview] How to Provide Solar Financing to Any Non-Profit Solar Project Larger Than 50kW Lee Barken and his team at Collective Sun have figured out the holy grail of commercial solar financing. Collective Sun can provide solar financing to non-profit solar projects from 50kW and up. Currently, they’re offering their product in California but… Continue reading “[Interview] How to Provide Solar Financing to Any Non-Profit Solar Project Larger Than 50kW”
5 Perspectives for Using Solar Subcontractors for Residential PV Installation This is a guest post by Fred Paris. Fred teaches our 6 week Solar Startup Accelerator where students get the tools (budgeting, planning, pricing, project management) and business plan they need to start new solar business or solar division within… Continue reading “5 Perspectives for Using Solar Subcontractors for Residential PV Installation”
Your Invitation –> NESEA Building Energy Trade Show Discount, Startup Alley, Building Energy Masters Series Meetup Next week is the Building Energy Conference. I’m going to be there, and there’s going to be a lot of fun things happening. I’ve gone to the NESEA show ever year since I was 16, and my buddy Gilbert from… Continue reading “Your Invitation –> NESEA Building Energy Trade Show Discount, Startup Alley, Building Energy Masters Series Meetup”
[Interview] How Faze1 Used Data to Acquire a 5kW Residential Solar Customer for $0.25/watt This is the story of how Faze1 learned how to acquire a 5kW residential solar customer in Massachusetts for $1,250 or $0.25/watt. This is about 50% lower than the $0.49/watt that is typically referred to for average residential customer acquisition… Continue reading “[Interview] How Faze1 Used Data to Acquire a 5kW Residential Solar Customer for $0.25/watt”
Interview with Jason Riback, Co-founder of Vulume I don’t build buildings, but a lot of my colleagues and customers do. So I spend a lot of time at building conferences, reading about buildings, and listening to the most knowledgeable people in the industry teach the skills and… Continue reading “Interview with Jason Riback, Co-founder of Vulume”
5+ Trends that will Drive the Growth of the Hydronic Industry in the Next 3 Years: A 30-Minute Conversion with John Siegenthaler There are a variety of forces changing the dynamics of the hydronic heating and renewable thermal industries that were not happening five years ago. While hydronic distribution is still attractive for similar technical reasons that it was five years ago—comfort,… Continue reading “5+ Trends that will Drive the Growth of the Hydronic Industry in the Next 3 Years: A 30-Minute Conversion with John Siegenthaler”
[30 Minute Interview] Why SREC Markets Will Grow in a Post-ITC Solar World + Other Trends in Commercial Solar Finance All eyes are on the reduction or expiration of the 30 percent federal solar tax credit (ITC). While it’s the prime goal of SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association) to maintain the federal ITC, some have argued explicitly that it’s time to… Continue reading “[30 Minute Interview] Why SREC Markets Will Grow in a Post-ITC Solar World + Other Trends in Commercial Solar Finance”