Talking Energy Policy with Industry Leaders Join GRID Alternatives for the Women in Energy Policy webcast Leading women in the field of clean energy policy will discuss their career paths, projects they’re currently working on and the growing role of women in traditionally male-dominated fields. This lecture… Continue reading “Talking Energy Policy with Industry Leaders”
Bring Your Sol to Work: Finding Career Opportunities in the Solar Industry In a recent conversation with a young woman, I had an epiphany about why working in solar is good for the soul. She had just returned from volunteering in Greece to help Syrian refugees receive care and assistance upon entry… Continue reading “Bring Your Sol to Work: Finding Career Opportunities in the Solar Industry”
Download the Free Solar Heating Basics Guide Download the Free Solar Heating Basics Guide Used in Vaughan Woodruff’s Solar Approaches to Radiant Heating course. Solar Approaches to Radiant Heating is for serious professionals with relevant experience. You’ll learn the latest, most advanced concepts for integrating solar with radiant heating systems.… Continue reading “Download the Free Solar Heating Basics Guide”
Leaders in High Performance Building: Best Green Energy Efficient Custom Home of 2015 At HeatSpring, we celebrate innovative builders and designers who work to improve the overall quality and performance of public and residential buildings… Our Leaders in High Performance Building Giveaway was created for those who have helped plan, design, construct, and/or operate a high performance building. Entrants… Continue reading “Leaders in High Performance Building: Best Green Energy Efficient Custom Home of 2015”
Solar PV Storm and AC vs. DC Safety Considerations On the Solar PV Installer Boot Camp Training + NABCEP Entry Level Exam Prep discussion board… Student 1: Fred, what is the standard for lightning protection systems? The book touches this topic briefly. Is it the norm to have lightning protection? Do… Continue reading “Solar PV Storm and AC vs. DC Safety Considerations”
Solar Women Summer Series: Enabling the New Energy Economy Elena Lucas is the CEO and Co-Founder of UtilityAPI, an enterprise software company delivering access to energy usage data. Lucas is an active Board Member of Women in Cleantech & Sustainability, a former Pacific Gas and Electric Company Business Finance Analyst and… Continue reading “Solar Women Summer Series: Enabling the New Energy Economy”
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”
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”
Get Ahead of the Curve in the Solar Industry The solar industry in the U.S. is growing at a breakneck pace. A recent report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association states that, for the first time in well over a decade, the U.S. is expected to… Continue reading “Get Ahead of the Curve in the Solar Industry”
Renewable Energy Lessons From Harvard Business School’s Study on U.S. Competitiveness On November 15th, Harvard Business School hosted a discussion on ways companies and other stakeholders can boost U.S. competitiveness. It took place at The Henry Ford in Detroit, and the case discussion was about the rise, fall, and rise of… Continue reading “Renewable Energy Lessons From Harvard Business School’s Study on U.S. Competitiveness”
Community Solar Lessons Learned in Vermont – Jeff Forward @ Renewable Energy Vermont 2012 At the beginning of October, Renewable Energy Vermont held their annual conference. There were a number of amazing presentations and some struck me more then others. For the ones I really enjoyed, I decided to follow up with the presenters… Continue reading “Community Solar Lessons Learned in Vermont – Jeff Forward @ Renewable Energy Vermont 2012”
The OPEN PV Project: See Real Time Solar PV Installations from 2000 to 2012 and More Cool Info I just stumbled upon The Open PV Project that was compiled by NREL. It provides some cool vanity metrics, like a PV map of solar PV installations from 2000 to 2012, and so some very useful state by state market… Continue reading “The OPEN PV Project: See Real Time Solar PV Installations from 2000 to 2012 and More Cool Info”
Jigar Shah’s Call to Arms For Small Solar Companies Everywhere This week I flew to Chicago for the Illinois Solar Energy Association fund raiser. Jigar Shah delivered the keynote to 70 registrants, packed into Emmett’s Place in Palatine. I left at 9:30pm with an excited sense that Solar PV in… Continue reading “Jigar Shah’s Call to Arms For Small Solar Companies Everywhere”
“If you can’t install solar at $3.45/watt, you’re going out of business.” Straight Talk on Solar with Jigar Shah at NESEA 2012 Jigar Shah was my favorite presenter at this year’s Building Energy Conference. Mr. Shah founded SunEdison in 2003 and sold it five years later for $200 million. Here are some quotes he offered up in the “Energy Subsidies and the… Continue reading ““If you can’t install solar at $3.45/watt, you’re going out of business.” Straight Talk on Solar with Jigar Shah at NESEA 2012″
3 Learnings from Last Week’s #Solarchat and What it Says about the Future of the Industry Last week a number of solar super stars on twitter decided to discuss how we can mainstream solar. The conversion happened on twitter. I’m not going to give a recap or discuss what we talked about, you can find great… Continue reading “3 Learnings from Last Week’s #Solarchat and What it Says about the Future of the Industry”
Lessons Learned from Inventing a Solar Installation Tool and How it Can Help you Sell More Projects Let me first start by saying that this article is indeed a piece of shameless promotion. It is about a solar installation tool that I invented while I was running a crew installing residential photovoltaic arrays in Massachusetts. At first, I was not… Continue reading “Lessons Learned from Inventing a Solar Installation Tool and How it Can Help you Sell More Projects”
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”
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”