Free Tool: Site Lease vs. Buy Modeling Calculator Chris Lord’s FREE Site Lease vs. Buy Modeling Calculator allows users to compare a lease rate against a potential purchase of a solar PV site where the lease rate (including escalator) is known. This tool is used in HeatSpring’s Financial Modeling… Continue reading “Free Tool: Site Lease vs. Buy Modeling Calculator”
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”
Passive House Design: An Investment in the Future This is a guest post by Mike Duclos. He is a Certified Passive House Consultant and principal and founder of DEAP Energy Group, a consultancy providing a wide variety of deep energy retrofit, zero net energy, and Passive House related… Continue reading “Passive House Design: An Investment in the Future”
Two Things You Should Know About the Michigan Solar Industry The Open PV Project ranks Michigan as the 28th best state for solar PV with 7.09 MW of installed capacity. Here are two things you might not know about the Michigan solar industry if you’re not spending a lot of… Continue reading “Two Things You Should Know About the Michigan Solar Industry”
Solar Executive MBA – Learn How to Model, Price, and Find Investors for Your Commercial Solar Projects Whose job is it to understand all of the numbers behind a commercial or utility-scale solar project? “That’s somebody else’s job,” is the response we hear from most people in the solar industry. We built the Solar Executive MBA for… Continue reading “Solar Executive MBA – Learn How to Model, Price, and Find Investors for Your Commercial Solar Projects”
What Every Renewable Energy Trainer Needs to Do to Stay Relevant My #1 piece of advice to all trainers for the next five years: create a digital version of your content. Do it now. Create it in little packets so you can deliver them in an agile way across a variety… Continue reading “What Every Renewable Energy Trainer Needs to Do to Stay Relevant”
Why Get NABCEP Certified? Is getting NABCEP Certified worth it? It’s the only game in town in the solar industry, but it’s not really required – it’s not a license. People ask me whether it’s worth it all the time and I don’t really… Continue reading “Why Get NABCEP Certified?”
Vermont Has the Most Progressive Solar Permitting Process in the Nation Until recently, Rachel Tronstein served as the Deputy Director of the SunShot Initiative at the U.S. Department of Energy. SunShot is a presidential level initiative focused on making R&D investments that will drive down the installed cost of solar so… Continue reading “Vermont Has the Most Progressive Solar Permitting Process in the Nation”
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”
Top 10 Helpful Tips When Submitting A 1603 Grant Application This is a guest post by Rodman and Rodman. If you have any accounting questions related to renewable energy projects, the guys at Rodman and Rodman are awesome. Rodman & Rodman has prepared numerous 1603 applications and, based on our… Continue reading “Top 10 Helpful Tips When Submitting A 1603 Grant Application”
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”
Geothermal and Solar Installers: Get to Know Your Municipal Utility (It’s not a Waste of Time) “Municipal utilities are more open to trying new things than investor-owned utilities.” This is the lesson I took away from my visit to the Wyandotte Municipal Services as part of a delegation from the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association. They’ve… Continue reading “Geothermal and Solar Installers: Get to Know Your Municipal Utility (It’s not a Waste of Time)”
[Photo Guide] Installing Solar PV Racking on Flat Roofs in NYC For residential applications everyone knows that a 10 pitch metal seam room is as easy as you get can for residential solar, followed by high quality asphalt shingles. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places in the country, specifically in cities, where… Continue reading “[Photo Guide] Installing Solar PV Racking on Flat Roofs in NYC”
Made in Detroit: Do you Have a Customer with a Thermal Problem? A hybrid solar panel made in Detroit using automotive components, with investment from an EPC contractor in Florida. Interesting. Interesting enough that I spent two hours this week along with other members of the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association touring… Continue reading “Made in Detroit: Do you Have a Customer with a Thermal Problem?”
Solidifying Clean Energy As a Political Force in New England September 2012 Post Event Update I had a great time at Munro’s conference and learned a lot. Thanks again to Munro for hosting. My workshop went well, it’s a little difficult to get people to open up but after a… Continue reading “Solidifying Clean Energy As a Political Force in New England”
Keeping Vermont on the Cutting Edge of Clean Energy and How You Can Get Involved Vermont has long been on the cutting edge of renewable energy and energy efficiency. They like to get stuff done, from solar permitting to efficiency and biomass. Two weeks ago, I spoke with executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, Gabrielle… Continue reading “Keeping Vermont on the Cutting Edge of Clean Energy and How You Can Get Involved”
Are Solar Renewable Energy Credits Taxable? There has been much recent discussion on solar and energy blogs and in other discussion forums relating to the tax treatment of Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (“SREC”) income. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of… Continue reading “Are Solar Renewable Energy Credits Taxable?”
Guide to Bridge Financing For Solar EPC Contractors Over the past month, I’ve seen a pick up in the amount of companies that are offering ‘bridge financing’ to small and middle size solar PV contractors. So, I thought I would put together a short post and a free… Continue reading “Guide to Bridge Financing For Solar EPC Contractors”
Betting on the Decline of Residential Solar PV Financing Here is a crazy thought: we will know that solar pv has become mainstream when 3rd party financiers are no longer needed. I’m very bullish on the ability of 3rd financiers to be able to compete with the general trend of the… Continue reading “Betting on the Decline of Residential Solar PV Financing”
The Future of Comfort. How the World Cup Might Help Your Help Your HVAC Business. How did Qatar win their bid to host the 2022 World Cup? In this video, Wolfgang Kessling explains how his team designed a comfort strategy that helped make it happen. Yes, comfort. Here’s why I wanted to share this video with… Continue reading “The Future of Comfort. How the World Cup Might Help Your Help Your HVAC Business.”