The Entrepreneur vs General Contractor. Who Will Win the Clean Energy Race? There’s an interesting split in the residential and light commercial clean energy space lately. As consumer demand is surging and some “old” solar pv players are moving to bigger projects (Nexamp no longer does residential and is installing 4.5 MW… Continue reading “The Entrepreneur vs General Contractor. Who Will Win the Clean Energy Race?”
Solar Financing Options and the Benefits of Each The residential, commercial and utility scale solar financing markets are different and have their own dynamics. If you’re really interested in learn more about financing commercial solar PV projects, I have three resources for you. Click here to sign up… Continue reading “Solar Financing Options and the Benefits of Each”
How to Use Lean Startup Methods in Renewable Energy to Increase Profits In the last few posts I’ve written about the process of expanding an existing construction company into renewable energy business and the single thing our marketing planwill focus on. If you’re new to the solar industry, go to the Solar 101… Continue reading “How to Use Lean Startup Methods in Renewable Energy to Increase Profits”
How to Create a Solar PPA Today the US solar market is booming–67% growth in 2010, according to SEIAs 2010 Solar Market Trends Report–easily the fastest growing industry in the US. In the US Solar photovoltaic market, there are largely two main obstacles to growth. The… Continue reading “How to Create a Solar PPA”
How to Size a Heating and Cooling System – 101 Older space conditioning systems (more than 10 years old) are often unreliable and much less efficient than a modern system. When it’s time for a new replacement, choosing one of the correct size (heating and/or cooling output) is critical to… Continue reading “How to Size a Heating and Cooling System – 101”
HS TV Ep 3. How to Study for the NABCEP Certification HeatSpring TV is coming along nicely. We’re planning on having a combination of interviews and conversations with other industry experts, myself presenting news stories and how it affect contractors, or Brian and I discussing a specific topic. In this episode,… Continue reading “HS TV Ep 3. How to Study for the NABCEP Certification”
What is an SREC? [HS TV Ep. 2] In the past, we’ve written on the basics of SRECs but I wanted to get a more in-depth perspective on what an SREC is, how the markets are developed and are different from each other and how the SREC market… Continue reading “What is an SREC? [HS TV Ep. 2]”
11 Tips for Proper Manual J Calculations for Geothermal Contractors Many geothermal and general contractors pay a subcontractor to perform Manual J calculations when its required. Accurate heating and cooling loads are absolutely critical to properly designing a geothermal system (See 4 Steps to Designing a Geothermal System) and according… Continue reading “11 Tips for Proper Manual J Calculations for Geothermal Contractors”
[Photo Guide] How to Install A Solar Thermal System You’ve held a solar thermal workshop and generated some leads, prepared a solid sales presentation, sold your first job, designed the system and now you’re curious about the installation process. While the installation process may not take a long time compared… Continue reading “[Photo Guide] How to Install A Solar Thermal System”
Designing a “Sellable” Solar (or Geothermal) Company – Part 2 In my last post, I wrote about my marketing plan for starting a renewable energy company that will be an offshoot of an existing construction company in the great state of Maine. Now, I’m going to discuss how we’ll be setting up… Continue reading “Designing a “Sellable” Solar (or Geothermal) Company – Part 2″
Commercial Developers Begin to Seek Solar Expertise Chad Gessin, VP at Chatham Energy Solutions, took HeatSpring’s “Solar Installer Boot Camp” in June 2011 while he was developing the solar division in a third-generation construction development company. Read below for the full story and join HeatSpring facebook page:… Continue reading “Commercial Developers Begin to Seek Solar Expertise”
[Free Whitepaper] Solar Thermal Design and Installation 101 As the traction for the solar thermal industry grows, solar thermal SRECs being developed, and Massachusetts revamping solar thermal incentives, the demand for understanding how solar thermal projects work as well as how to design and install them has been… Continue reading “[Free Whitepaper] Solar Thermal Design and Installation 101”
Universities Can be a Great Market for Geo and Solar Recently, I spoke with Nathalie Assens at Project Manager at ZVI Construction. ZVI Construction is a medium size, three-decade old, design-build construction company that does a lot of work with universities around Boston as well as internationally. Nathalie enrolled in… Continue reading “Universities Can be a Great Market for Geo and Solar”
Solar Thermal Is Finally Gaining Traction For the past 5 years solar photovoltaics (pv) has been capturing more than its fare share of media attention, government attention and, I would argue, market growth. But there seems to be signs that this trend is reversing. It’s not… Continue reading “Solar Thermal Is Finally Gaining Traction”
Geothermal Powers the Statue of Liberty, President Bush’s Ranch, and the Greenest Hotel in the World Solar guys have been good at show-casing their best solar installations to the public and politicians – the geothermal industry needs to step up and begin to showcase our best installations as well. PR and customer awarnress are key; a recent report… Continue reading “Geothermal Powers the Statue of Liberty, President Bush’s Ranch, and the Greenest Hotel in the World”
The 4 Ownership Structures Used to Finance Solar Projects – Part 1 If you’re new to the solar industry, go to the Solar 101 Reading list. It has free tools and articles on solar design and installation, sales and marketing, policy, finance and best practices. In the last post we discussed the… Continue reading “The 4 Ownership Structures Used to Finance Solar Projects – Part 1”
VERY Basic Geothermal Training Ground Source Heat Pumps, GeoExchange, Ground Coupled Heat Pumps…the list goes on. The Geothermal Heat Pump industry has had a lot of names over the years. In this three minute video, HeatSpring Instructor John Manning explains what Geothermal Heat Pumps… Continue reading “VERY Basic Geothermal Training”
The 5 Criteria You Should Use When Selecting a (Good) Solar Distributor If you’re getting into the solar industry, read the 16 questions that every profitable solar company can answer. It will give you a good understanding of the business strategy, sales, marketing and installation questions you must answer as a new… Continue reading “The 5 Criteria You Should Use When Selecting a (Good) Solar Distributor”
How to Build a Renewable Energy Division in an Existing Building Company – PART 1 A lot of residential and light commercial renewable energy work is starting to be picked up by general contractors, like Jamie Leef of S+H Construction in Cambridge. Why? General contractors are in a unique position to pick up this work because they’re used… Continue reading “How to Build a Renewable Energy Division in an Existing Building Company – PART 1”
3 Expert Led Free Coures on SRECs, Geothermal Tax Credits and Solar Lead Generation Our first free course was a huge success. How to Make Money in Renewable Energy had a great turnout, well over 140 attendees with solid content helpful to newcomers to the industry. With such interest, we have decided to expand… Continue reading “3 Expert Led Free Coures on SRECs, Geothermal Tax Credits and Solar Lead Generation”