The Energy Show

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show - Barry Cinnamon

This week’s Energy Show is for solar power customers, contractors and inverter manufacturers who appreciate the need for reliable solar power systems. Surprising as it may seem, most solar monitoring systems are simply not up to the reliability standards of the panels and inverters they support.

The good news is that solar monitoring problems almost never affect system performance. Monitoring failures may indicate an inverter problem, but the panels and inverters are almost always working properly. In reality, the problem is with the communications somewhere along the chain - including the inverter, inverter gateway, home router, wireless connections (wifi, zigbee, cellular, etc.), internet connection and server-side software. Troubleshooting these monitoring and communications issues is one of the biggest hassles that contractors have -- made more difficult by the fact that most installers do not have home networking IT expertise. As a result, many contractors have changed their inverter suppliers because of less than perfect monitoring hardware and software.

Going back to 2001 I’ve installed inverter systems from over a dozen companies. Not surprisingly, most of these inverters or communications systems are still running (including Trace, SMA, Fat Spaniel, Xantrex, BP Solar, Sharp, Fronius, SunRun, Enphase, SolarBridge, PowerOne, SolarEdge, JLM, Tigo). Although these inverter companies make great inverters, they are not necessarily software and communications experts. The end result is poor monitoring reliability and customer complaints, even when the inverters continue to operate.

To learn more about these solar monitoring issues — as well as my recommendations for long term monitoring reliability— Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show.

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon. All Rights Reserved.

On this week’s Energy Show were talking about old solar panels. Specifically, what do you do with them?

Solar panels last 30 years or more. Almost all of the old panels that I have tested still crank out close to their original power output. Unfortunately, old solar panels are not compatible with the electronics of new systems - inverters, optimizers and microinverters. Sort of like that old CD-ROM software that is still good…if you could just get a computer that has a CD-ROM drive and runs Windows XP.

Some people want to upgrade their old 14% efficiency panels with new 20%+ efficiency panels equipped with a battery storage system. One big benefit of upgrading or adding panels is that the 30% tax credit applies to all new equipment — including that old inverter that may have failed. I expect that commercial customers will also start to upgrade their systems, replacing thousands of old panels with thousands of new panels.

So what do you do with these old panels? Even though they are constructed of recyclable glass, aluminum and silicon, there has not been a viable solution for recycling solar panels. Instead of dumping old solar panels in landfills, my friend and solar guru Sam Vanderhoof has a solution to this problem: his new company called Recycle PV Solar (recyclepv.solar).

Sam estimates that about 95% of solar panels are going into landfills. 15 gigawatts of solar panels were installed in the U.S. in 2016 - that represents about 6 million pounds of panels being installed every day! On a cumulative basis there are about 53 gigwatts of panels currently installed in the U.S., or about 200 million solar panels. To visualize the enormity of this recycling challenge, a train filled with containers of solar panels would be 1,500 miles long! Please Listen Up to this Week’s Energy Show to learn more about the challenges, economics and opportunities of recycling solar panels.

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon. All Rights Reserved.

Great solar policy is just as important as great solar technology. Obviously we need the technologies for these products — but we also need the policies so that solar products can be cost-effectively installed. And I’m not just talking about incentives…policies related to net metering, interconnection and permitting are just as important.

Getting good solar policy requires effective political lobbying. I hate to let you down, but these great energy policies did not magically spring from the brains of inspired politicians When I look back at the successes our industry has had over the years — net metering, the California Solar Initiative, Solar Tax Credits, state incentives — all of these policies were based on sound analytical research coupled with effective lobbying.

There are a few companies that specialize in the types of analysis that’s required to put together good policies. One of the best is Cross Border Energy, based in Berkeley California. They provide clients with strategic advice, economic analysis and expert testimony on market and regulatory issues in the natural gas and electric industry. It is my pleasure to have Tom Beach, Principal Consultant of Cross Border Energy as our guest on this week’s Energy Show.

Tom has been influential on many of California’s ground breaking energy policies. He has worked on the restructuring of the states gas and electric industries, the addition of new natural gas pipelines and storage capacity, renewable energy development, and a wide range of issues concerning California’s large independent power community. I also had the pleasure of working with Tom on the California Solar Initiative many years ago. To learn more about the energy industry, real world solar economics, and Tom’s perspective on energy regulatory issues, listen up to this week’s Energy Show.

PS – the Kyocera and SMA rooftop solar system I installed for Tom back in 2003 is still working perfectly, with only 0.4% degradation over the last 15 years.

PPS – his monitoring system is intermittent since his 15 year old computer that runs the software is on its last legs.

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon. All Rights Reserved.

The electric utility industry is undergoing rapid change. There used to be two types of utilities: investor owned utilities (IOUs, such as Pacific Gas and Electric and ConEd) and municipally owned utilities (MOUs, such as LADWP and Silicon Valley Power). Now there is a third hybrid type, called a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) utility.

IOUs work for their stockholders — striving to maximize their profits by charging the most they can for electricity, maximizing their net assets and minimizing their expenses (often maintenance). MOUs work for their local cities — and try to provide affordable and reliable power in their territory. Not surprisingly, electric rates at IOUs are almost always higher than rates at nearby MOUs. Because IOUs profit by installing their own solar and storage systems and maximizing their own sales of electricity, they do not look favorably on homeowners and businesses installing their own systems. My biggest competitors for almost 20 years have been local IOUs.

CCAs offer the potential for lower electric rates for customers in their territory, without changing completely to a municipally-owned business structure. CCAs buy power from large solar and wind farms, as well as hydroelectric facilities. They then distribute this power over the existing utility lines. The existing utility bills customers and maintains the power lines, while the CCA essentially just charges customers for the energy they use. CCAs offer customers cheaper electricity, and they offer better economics to solar customers.

Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) is the new CCA serving most of the Silicon Valley area. My guest this week is John Supp, Manager of Accounts Services at SVCE. Please listen up to this week’s Energy Show as we talk about the operations, economics and effects that CCAs will have on both customers and the utility industry in general.

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon. All Rights Reserved.

Over a million buildings in the U.S. have rooftop solar. These systems are extremely reliable: solar panels are guaranteed for 25 years, and inverters are guaranteed for 10-25 years. Our experience as a contractor since 2001 bears out the terrific reliability record of rooftop solar.

Nevertheless, when inverters are past their expected lifetime we upgrade them to new models. Often we are able to replace two smaller inverters with one more efficient large inverter. When rooftop systems get very dirty (generally in areas without regular rainfall) we provide cleaning services. And not surprising to anyone who has ever tried to troubleshoot a home networking system, our most common customer service issue is with internet-based monitoring. To that point, current cellular-based monitoring systems have been 99.9% reliable (the only problems we have ever had have been with very weak mountain-top cell service).

Like a 15 year old car that still runs, sometimes it makes good economic sense upgrading your solar system to the latest model. The same logic applies when considering an upgrade to a new solar system. Old panels were 14% efficient, and old inverters were 93-95% efficient. New panels have 20%+ efficiencies, and new inverters are up to 99% efficient. Moreover, because of our unreliable electric grid and transition to Time of Use electric rates, many customers are interested in upgrading to a battery storage system.

For more about upgrading your solar system for your business or home – including applicability of the 30% tax credit on new equipment – Listen up to this week’s Energy Show.

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon. All Rights Reserved.

This week were talking about ten utility electric company myths and were going to debunk these myths, but first a little background. Electric utilities started in the U.S. in the 1880s. Thomas Edison came up with a way of generating DC power, and then George Westinghouse came up with a concept of AC power, which ultimately became the industry standard and grew rapidly. The fundamentals of the utility industry are you generate power in a central location with big power plants; originally coal fired, then oil, then gas, then nuclear, now solar. You then have transmission lines that transmit the electricity at high voltages over long distances. Then you have local distribution networks –those utility wires above and underground, and transformers that look like tin cans on utility poles, and these local distribution lines send lower voltage power to businesses and homes in the area. It’s a terrific industry, many innovations and it’s been a key part of our industrial economy’s growth. They deliver power safely, and relatively inexpensive in relation to what it used to cost –it is pretty affordable when you consider the alternatives, such as putting in your own wood burning generator --crazy.

But the thing is, the way we generate power and the way we can now store power, and the way we are using the technology is changing rapidly. The way we would store power even as little as ten years ago was we would build dams to store water, then run turbines to generate electricity as the water in the dam goes down. We can still do that but it is easier to store power in a battery.

Now that we have solar and wind power, as well as affordable energy storage we have to reconsider the role of utility companies. Because of changes in technology, we have less need for big utility companies that generate power centrally and transmit that power over long distances to our homes and businesses.

So where all this going is and what does it mean for homeowners and businesses? Listen up to this week’s Energy Show as we cover the top ten myths about utility companies that they use to justify their actions to ratepayers and competing industries like solar.

Copyright 2018 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon. All Rights Reserved.

California continues to lead the country when it comes to clean and inexpensive energy. Here is an example – In May the California Energy Commission passed a new rule that goes into effect on January 1st 2020 and it’s a really big deal! This rule requires that new homes have a photovoltaic system sized to zero out their annual electrical use. The rule applies to all new homes, apartments and condos under three stories tall. The rule also includes an option to include an energy storage system. I’ve received a number of calls and emails from people both in favor of and against this new rule over the last few weeks. The things that I really like about this new rule is that new homebuyers will definitely save money. We’ve done hundreds of installations on new homes and it works out really well for the new homeowner. And here’s why –According to numbers from the California Energy Commission, which by-the-way, I actually think they are fairly conservative when looking at the benefits: The cost of a new system on a mortgage would be an extra $80 per month on a typical mortgage. And that’s without the tax credit. The monthly savings with current electric bills are estimated to be $40 per month. So the net monthly savings is $40 per month which equates to almost $500 per year. So every new home that has solar on it is going to come out $500 cash flow positive every year. It’s good for new homes and good for new home buyers, but it’s also good because I think it’s going to increase the awareness of solar on residential rooftops. 152

But, there are also some negatives about this new rule. Some people have a visceral reaction against mandates. They simply don’t want to be told what to do and this is something that is going to slightly increase the cost of a new home. Keep in mind, mandates exist because we are trying to help people. After all, seatbelts are mandated too. There are a lot of other things that go into your home like insulation, guarantees, and certain types of equipment. It’s all mandated and now solar is being mandated. It will increase the cost of a home and homes in California are already really expensive. So while it’s true that costs will go up a little bit, there will be positive net savings for each and every one of these new home owners.

To learn more about the details on this new ruling on solar and battery storage for new homes in California, Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show.

The Energy Show - Barry Cinnamon

©2018 - All Rights Reserved

On this week’s energy show were talking about the all electric future. We’ve had customers at Cinnamon Energy Systems come to us wanting to go 100% electric at their home. They want to get rid of their gas dryer and furnaces, put in more solar panels, use an electric heat pump, and many already drive an EV. This kind of transition is already happening. So what does it mean when our homes, businesses and most transportation systems and most industries primarily operate from electricity instead of the fossil fuels that have powering humanity since basically we discovered fire?

There is a steady trend of devices and appliances that are converting from fossil fuels to electric operation. All of the big energy users when you look at the economy, transportation, industry, residential and commercial electricity have all been generated by fossil fuels. Now, everything is going electric. I expect that this electric future for humanity will depend very heavily on both solar and wind in the near term because we know those technologies to be cost effective. There may be things like nuclear fusion or other energy generating technologies that might happen over the next ten to fifty years, but right now, my bet is on solar and wind.

So Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show to learn more about why this migration to an all electric future is underway and the economic decisions you should be considering now for your home and business.

Commercial Rooftop Solar, Energy Storage, Rooftop Solar Mounting Systems

The Energy Show - Barry Cinnamon

© 2018-All rights reserved

What are the best solar panels – that’s the question we get all the time.  The first thing you have to figure out how you define word “best”.  Now the way I look at this is you look at solar panels that have the highest efficiency, that are the most cost effective, and are the most reliable. So you have to weigh those three factors. The first thing is all solar panels generate the same electricity on a per watt basis. Your appliances can’t tell the difference if you’ve got super panels made in the USA or the cheapest panels made somewhere in Asia. But there are clear cut differences in these panels in the efficiency, cost, aesthetics, installation costs and their availability. We also have distinctions that are somewhat objective like brand, quality, are they going to provide long term energy output. The thing about these subjective measures is they are not based on comparison data, objective studies or any independent laboratory testing. They are manufacturers claims so you have to be careful.

So which panels are best? To learn about key decision factors for selecting the best solar panels, please Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show.