The Energy Show

Many industries have boom and bust cycles as manufacturers try to adjust supply to customer demand. These challenges are accentuated in the solar industry because customer demand is influenced by changing incentives (rebates and tax credits), government policy (remember the EPA?) and rapid technology change. Industry participants fondly refer to these ups and downs as the “solar coaster.” It is unlikely that the solar coaster will flatten out to a very smooth ride anytime soon. Nevertheless, there are solid business practices that help companies and customers navigate these inevitable solar ups and downs.

Installers that operate their business conservatively and concentrate on maintaining happy customers are most likely to achieve long-term success. Like many residential construction businesses, solar installers rely on referrals to keep a steady flow of business. These referrals are the least expensive method to acquire new customers – a benefit that also helps keep overall selling prices down. Unlike many other industries, there are no economies of scale in the residential solar installation business. As a result, local and regional companies with low overheads are the most likely to survive the next big bump in the solar coaster. And companies that try to grow too fast often flame out.

The good news is that solar technology is extremely reliable – even if a manufacturer is not around it is very likely that their equipment is still working. Many local installers continue to provide cleaning and maintenance services for systems that are 20+ years old. The systems are still working and the customers are still happy. For more about the continuing saga of the solar coaster, Listen Up to the Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.

Solar Ups and Downs by Barry Cinnamon

In a world full of alternative facts, it should come as no surprise that the EPA no-longer stands for Protecting the Environment. On January 20th, 2017, only a day before millions of Americans took to the streets to march in support of climate action, the EPA made major changes to their website. According to their public statement, the EPA website would be “undergoing changes that reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt."

The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment. It’s worth repeating the EPA’s purpose, from their website:

all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work;

national efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information;

federal laws protecting human health and the environment are enforced fairly and effectively;

environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy;

all parts of society -- communities, individuals, businesses, and state, local and tribal governments -- have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks;

environmental protection contributes to making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable and economically productive; and

the United States plays a leadership role in working with other nations to protect the global environment.

The most apparent change to the EPA website is that the entire section dedicated to Climate Change was eliminated. No more scientific information, no more Climate Change problem … despite nearly irrefutable scientific evidence that climate change is due to human activity. Their new policies are designed to favor incumbent energy industries without regard to the environment, and are clearly in conflict with the defined mission of the EPA.

Temporarily there is still an archive of the old EPA website at https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange_.html. This temporary archive site maintains much of the EPA’s valuable scientific information, as well as the clear ways in which the Climate Change problem and solutions are explained. For more about the EPA’s climate change denial, please Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.

http://www.spicesolar.com/energy-politics/remember-the-epa/

Copyright © 2017 Spice Solar, All rights reserved.

Since the sun does not shine at night we need a way to store daytime-generated solar energy. Net metering is an elegant and 100% efficient way to shift excess solar power, but that system will not work at high solar penetration levels. Never mind the fact that utilities are loath to allow their customers to generate electricity for less than it costs them to deliver this power.

As a result, battery storage is on the minds of almost all new solar customers. Storage technology, incentives, favorable electric rates and control software are all evolving rapidly. There are currently about a dozen companies with battery storage systems designed for use with rooftop solar. Like peanut butter and chocolate, many solar companies are starting to offer battery storage systems along with their solar systems.

My advice is to proceed with caution. Even though off-grid battery storage systems have been available for years, we are at the very early stages of grid-tied solar combined with battery storage. From a hardware standpoint, battery technology is evolving rapidly, and new inverters/charge controllers are being developed. Perhaps more importantly, software that will efficiently interact with solar, batteries, the grid and your home energy consumption still has limited functionality. For more about the practicalities of home battery storage, Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.

PACE financing, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, started out about 10 years ago as a financing mechanism for residential solar. Basically, the cost of the solar system is repaid over a 5 to 20-year timeframe as a part of the building’s property taxes. The benefits are that the property serves as security for the loan, there is almost no repayment risk (everyone must pay their property taxes), interest is deductible, customers are almost always cash flow positive in the first year, and the property can be transferred more simply than if there is a standard solar lease or PPA.

These advantages also apply to PACE loans for commercial solar installations – with two extra benefits. First, many commercial PACE loans are structured in such a way that the tax and depreciation credits are front weighted so that commercial property owners are very cash flow positive in the first few years. Second, many commercial leases are triple net — in other words the tenant pays for utilities, taxes and maintenance (in addition to utilities). If there is a solar PACE loan on the property, the tenant gets the benefit of lower electricity costs and automatically pays for the slightly higher tax assessment from the solar PACE loan. Voilà – no cost to the building owner.

My guest on this week’s Energy Show is Brandon Deno, Vice President of Solar at Clean Fund. Clean Fund is the leading provider of PACE loans for commercial buildings. Please Listen Up to The Energy Show on Renewable Energy World as Brandon explains the ways in which solar developers and building owners can take advantage of PACE loans for their commercial properties.

When someone gets a new rooftop solar installation, the second question they always ask is “how often do I need to clean my solar panels.” We’ll answer that question on this week’s show — taking into account the different effects of rain, dust and electric rates (BTW, the first question people always ask is “how do I read my electric bill;” but that’s a topic for another show).

Rooftop solar panels get dirty primarily from wind-blown dust and pollen. Birds are usually not a problem unless your last name is Hitchcock and you live in Bodega Bay. As panels get dirtier, their output declines. A small amount of soiling — say a light dusty film — may only cause a 5 percent output decline. However, when panels get very dirty — perhaps in an agricultural area or location that does not get regular rainfall — the output decline can be greater than 20 percent. A good heavy rainstorm will usually wash away most of the accumulated soiling.

I use the term “usually” because on panels that are tilted at about 5 degrees or less, the rain may leave a puddle of muddy debris along the lower edge of the panel. When this puddle dries, sometimes a thick layer of dirt accumulates along the lower row of cells (sometimes moss and weeds may even grow in these areas). Depending on the design of the system, this small accumulation of dirt can cause a very significant decrease in output.

So the answer to the question: “how often should I clean my solar panels” really depends on five factors: your location (does it rain regularly or only during certain months), the tilt angle of your panels (steeply tilted panels tend to stay much cleaner than panels that are close to horizontal), the amount of wind blown dust, your electric rate (if your electric rate is high then it is more worthwhile to clean your panels), and the cost to clean your panels. For more about cleaning your solar panels, please Listen Up to this week’s edition of the Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.

Video killed the radio star – just as natural gas, wind and solar are slowly but surely killing the nuclear power industry (we’re already saying good bye to coal). Unfortunately, the venerable Westinghouse Electric Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 29th 2017, dragged down by huge losses in their nuclear power plant construction business. But the story about the demise of Westinghouse is more nuanced.

George Westinghouse founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1886. He teamed up with Nikola Tesla to develop and promote AC power, instead of the DC power infrastructure preferred by Thomas Edison. By using transformers to step up voltages for long distance power distribution and then step down voltages again for home use, the economics of AC power turned out to be much more favorable than DC power (the geeky reason is explained by Ohm’s Law and conductor sizes). To this day the world’s electrical system is still almost exclusively based on AC power. Over a 100-year period the Westinghouse Electric Corporation expanded into appliances, locomotives, entertainment – and even solar power (for many years Westinghouse held the record for solar cell efficiency).

Fast forward to the 1990s when the Westinghouse Electric Corporation came to the conclusion that their broadcasting subsidiary – the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) – had the potential to be more profitable than their manufacturing businesses. So they sold off all of their manufacturing operations, renamed the parent company as CBS, and licensed the Westinghouse name to leading companies in related market segments. Their nuclear business, which was named the Westinghouse Electric Company, eventually ended up as a subsidiary of Toshiba.

Toshiba expected to benefit from a renaissance in nuclear power, leveraging less expensive reactor designs and the need for carbon-free electricity. But three developments prevented this nuclear renaissance. First, the actual construction of these new reactor designs ended up being very expensive and time consuming. Second, nuclear power is still plagued by safety (Fukushima), nuclear waste and proliferation issues. And the final nail in the nuclear coffin is economic: electric power plants fueled by natural gas, solar and wind are much less expensive to build and operate, and can be constructed in several years – as opposed to several decades for a new nuclear plant. For more about the fate of Westinghouse and the nuclear power industry, Listen Up to the Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.

Ten Tips For 25 Years Of Trouble Free Solar Power by Barry Cinnamon

It may seem counter-intuitive, but you can have too many solar panels on your roof. With conventional net metering, your utility will not reimburse you at the end of the year if you produce more power than you consume. For example, last year my electric bill was -$46.86. Our roof has a 6kw solar system on it, but because we installed a new thermostat, LEDs and new windows, we generated a net credit with our utility last year. So I’m replacing my LEDs with old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs so I can use more power and get closer to a zero bill this year.

The number of panels you need is based on two factors: the available space on your roof and the size of your electric bill. A good installer will not take advantage of you by installing modules where there is a lot of shade or a poor north-facing orientation on a steep roof. Along the same lines, your installer should analyze your current electric bill and recommend the number of solar panels that will get you close to a zero bill.

Once you know these two boundary conditions – the number of panels that fit on your roof and the number of panels that you need to zero out your bill – you can see what size system fits in with your budget and method of financing. At the same time your installer should step you through the options for different levels of solar panel efficiency, module electronics (optimizers or microinverters), and changes in your future use of electricity (such as an EV or energy conservation measures). For more about determining the optimum size of your solar power system, Listen Up to this week’s episode of The Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.

It’s that time of the year…tax time, that is. Every year we get questions from customers about filling out their solar investment tax credit (ITC) form. Now, we are not tax experts (so check with your accountant), but the rules are pretty straightforward for the solar ITC.

Basically, every homeowner who installs a solar electric system or solar hot water system (not a pool heating system) gets a 30% tax credit on the total cost of their system. This tax credit only applies to the owner of the system, not if you have a solar lease or solar PPA. There is no need to file for the ITC if you have a lease or PPA since the corporate entity that owns your system has already collected the tax credit and depreciation benefits – reducing your monthly payments accordingly.

It only takes a few minutes to fill out the IRS “Residential Energy Credits” Form 5695. For documentation, all you need are copies of all the invoices that apply to the installation of your home solar system. For more about getting your 2016 solar investment tax credit, Listen Up to the Energy Show on Renewable Energy World.