Solar Energy Show

Outdoor pools are great on hot summer days - the kids are occupied and the water is refreshing. And as the summer progresses, the water heats up to a comfortable level. But on chilly spring and fall days the cool water in that pool amounts to nothing more than a 30,000 gallon decoration in your back yard. Plus you still may need to run the electric pool pumps to keep the water clean. Because the water is cold in the spring and early summer, your options are to swim (or not to swim) in cold water, burn $50 in extra natural gas to heat your pool, or install a solar pool heating system. It's no surprise that my preferred solution is to install solar pool heat collectors. These pool heat collectors are easily connected into your pool's existing circulating pump system, and can easily maintain your pool at a comfortable 80 degrees F for most of the year. My guest this week is Freeman Ford, one of the founders of FAFCO. FAFCO is the oldest and largest manufacturer of pool heating systems in the U.S. They are bas

Many of the most significant industrial and technological innovations in the U.S. were discovered, commercialized and expanded with government support. Turn the clock a century or two and you can see how the government was behind oil drilling and refining, transcontinental railroads and our electric grid. More recently the government's been successful with the space program, the internet and the biotech revolution. And these government efforts continue with solar. To quote the DOE: "In 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) was tasked with achieving the goals of the SunShot Initiative: to drive down the cost of solar electricity to be fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by the end of the decade." [no one else uses verbs like "tasked'] Suffice it to say that over the past few years SunShot has already been the motivating factor behind dozens of solar innovations, including new financing concepts (Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Au

Over 95% of climate scientists have concluded that CO2 is the primary cause of global warming. Solving the problem requires a dramatic reduction in CO2 emissions. Some people are altruistic, but almost all businesses are bottom line oriented and will not reduce their CO2 emissions unless they have an economic incentive to do so. There are two realistic incentives: taxing CO2 emissions or setting up a cap and trade program for CO2. Since increasing taxes is politically unfeasible, the most practical approach is with a cap and trade program. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency implemented a cap and trade program for sulfur dioxide (the primary contributor to acid rain) in 1995. This program was a great success, and essentially eliminated the acid rain program. California passed AB32 in 2006 to accomplish the same goals for CO2 emissions. This law sets a cap on emissions from almost all sources, and gives polluting companies a certain number of allowances. If companies reduce their CO2 emissions (with rene

Solar modules started out as fairly simple moisture-proof sandwiches of glass, silicon cells, glue and backsheets -- with a junction box that contains a few diodes to bypass defective or shaded cells. No fancy electronics in the early days. Then power electronics circuitry crept into early inverters -- to the point now where all inverters contain hundreds of electronics chips to provide various optimization, communications and safety functions. Now that many installations use microinverters or optimizers, every single solar panel has its own collection of electronics chips. Power electronics for solar modules are generally designed with 50-200 general purpose integrated circuits and related components. Like almost all other electronic products, microinverters and optimizers were all initially designed with discrete components -- but then, as sales volumes increase manufacturers started to include more specialized components. Think about the first PCs and all the components that were soldered onto internal ci

Architects are in the driver's seat when it comes to building new homes or overseeing major remodeling projects. Although they are familiar with rooftop solar, their designs generally do not include solar panels. Whether it's because of cost, technology or aesthetics, it's a big opportunity that is lost to almost all new homeowners. Fortunately, this reluctance to include solar panels as a standard feature is beginning to change. Some national homebuilders offer solar as a standard option, and the overall economics of rooftop solar continues to improve. A recent study has found that the single most important factor driving whether a given homeowner installs solar is peer influence -- essentially, whether their neighbors have solar, also. So new home buyers, custom home builders and home remodeling companies are more likely to ask their architects for rooftop solar. My guest this week is Marvin Bamburg, the principle at MBA Architects, a San Jose-based residential and commercial architecture firm. His firm h

Solar PV customers understand that they can generate cheap electricity with rooftop solar. That electricity is good for lighting, appliances, air conditioning and other household uses. But homeowners often ask about heating their homes with solar. The answer used to be installing a solar thermal system with rooftop solar panels generating hot water (stored in a tank) or hot air (stored in a bed of rocks or other thermal mass). But now there is another option: heat pumps combined with rooftop PV. Two trends are making this type of system cost effective. First, rooftop PV systems now generate electricity inexpensively, often much less than what you would pay from your local utility. Second, there is a new generation of smaller, modular heat pumps called "mini-split systems" that allow you to heat and cool a few rooms at a time, instead of your entire house. The combination of cheap PV electricity and a zoned approach to heating and cooling are often less expensive than natural gas heat and central air conditio

Cold Fusion - Dec 2014 by Barry Cinnamon 366248

Taking Advantage Of Low Gas Prices - Jan 2015 by Barry Cinnamon 366248

Solar panels keep getting more efficient. That's a great thing. But they can't communicate, can't adjust to environmental circumstances, and don't have automatic shutdown capabilities. Fortunately -- and with apologies to the Farrelly brothers (who seem to have similar limitations) -- solar panels aren't getting any dumber. Many of the newest solar panels are equipped with optimizers, either built into the junction box or attached as a separate component to the back of the panel. Microinverters (which convert the DC output of a panel to AC) provide the same basic benefits at similar costs; however, unlike microinverters, optimizers operate on the DC side of the system and are always connected to a central or string inverter. These optimizers, or power electronics as their also called, provide three basic functions. First, they optimize the output of each panel by adjusting the current and voltage generated by each panel. If there is a weak panel operating at a low current, the optimizer on that panel can lo

Ahhh. The Holy Grail of Customer Acquisition. Maybe it's low price ... great company reputation ... special technology ... brand name products ... ubiquitous marketing? I've tried all of them and they all work, to a degree. But these tactics are not cheap, consistent or scalable. There is an answer, one that is pretty much right in front of our eyes. Research into this topic is described in the following paper: “Spatial Patterns of Solar Photovoltaic System Adoption: The Influence of Neighbors and the Built Environment.” This research was spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of economics at Yale University. Dr. Gillingham is not an ivory tower solar newbie. He's been doing research in the solar industry for over a dozen years going back to his days at Stanford. Interestingly, one of his projects was crunching the numbers in an enormous spreadsheet that led to the economic justification for the California Solar Initiative. Ken's research confirms that if your neighbor has rooftop solar, there

Hurricanes. Blizzards. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. They've all clobbered populated areas over the last few years, resulting in extended power outages, fuel shortages and even lack of potable water. But people live comfortably in completely off-grid locations, generating their own electricity, using sustainable sources for heat, and even recycling their water. These off-grid systems are gradually creeping into mainstream America. Generators are sold in some supermarkets, wood stoves are becoming popular heating options, people are learning how to recover and re-use grey water, and battery backup solar power systems are being rejuvenated by inexpensive batteries coupled with steadily increasing utility power rates. Inevitably, prices for these technologies will become more and more affordable -- just as electricity, gas and water become more expensive. Our special guest for this week's show is Tod DuBois, CEO of Sangha Energy. Tod's company specializes in off-grid living systems, including battery-backup solar po

Utility scale solar has historically been the biggest market for solar power in the U.S. Currently, most of the largest plants are located in the southwest U.S. states where there is plenty of sunny, relatively unused land. The largest of these projects are slightly over 500 megawatts using in the neighborhood of 2 million solar panels. Thats a lot of solar panels -- but also a lot of solar panel racking. On any large ground mounted project, most of the on-site labor relates to installing the solar panel racking (by comparison, installing the panels on the racks and wiring them together goes relatively quickly). As the solar industry strives to reduce costs, less expensive and easier to install racking becomes critical to the financial benefits of a project. The traditional galvanized pipe in concrete pier mounting structures have become a thing of the past. One such innovation comes from Solar FlexRack. In 2009 they designed a ground mount racking system that ships compactly, then expands on-site like an a

We're in the middle of winter. But pretty soon the rain will stop, the snow will melt, the home and garden shows will gear up and solar customers will start to plan their investments for the year. At the same time, solar companies of all sizes will remind their customers that the tax credits are going away and they better "buy now" to lock in pricing at these low rates. OK, one can pretty much take these predictions to the bank. But what will happen in the solar industry in 2015? What kind of mergers and acquisitions activities will we see? How will the "long tail" of small installers fare against the big national installers? Will we get an extension of the ITC, or will a Republican-dominated Congress try to sideline renewables and keep drilling? Will the residential solar leasing curve flatten in favor of loans and cash purchases? What impact will tariffs have on the prices of modules. Will BOS costs continue to fall? Who will win the Super Bowl? I don't know. But I can guess. I've peered through my cracke

In our opening Energy Show we discuss frequently asked questions about residential solar.