Solar customer data is increasingly being used for quantifiable savings by solar installers, developers, energy arbitrators and utilities. The software companies specialized in gathering and aggregating this data on residential, commercial and industrial levels are also building more functional systems that will help to standardize energy efficiency and asset managementRead More

Shaving the peaks off commercial and industrial (C&I) electric bills is the top revenue stream for energy storage systems, and given the trend in increasing utility charges for time-of-use consumption, peak shaving can pay for a system in as little as three years, system providers say. Just how high theRead More

It’s always reassuring when solar technology moves faster than a federal regulator, even if it is a well-intentioned agency like the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In this recent case, a new crop of solar tile replacements that support rooftop mounting systems are eliminating the needRead More

Solar inverter intelligence and monitoring has evolved mightily over the last few years, from silent rows of capacitors to today’s circuit-programmable, WiFi-enabled guardians of PV arrays. These systems sense minute changes in operation and advise system managers of options, in real time, for energy management and O&M (operations and maintenance).Read More

The days when a residential or commercial solar installer did not need to know the difference in performance between lead-acid and lithium-based batteries are over. Battery storage has emerged as an unavoidable complement to solar, slashing peak charges and outwitting utility time-of-use charge games, not to mention saving microgrids fromRead More

Community solar has taken off within the renewable energy development leagues, melding the interests of residential and commercial or industrial customers, as well as the local utilities. While the inclusion of low- and middle-income (LMI) residential customers are widely enabled by state legislation on community solar, specific carve-outs or percentageRead More

Boutique financiers armed with massive databases and complex algorithms are changing the way that small commercial and industrial (C&I) solar projects get financed. Typically targeting projects under 250 kW, these financiers have automated and accelerated as much of the underwriting chore as possible. The result is that old back-office costsRead More

For the first time ever, in 2016, U.S. solar ranked as the No. 1 source of new electric generating capacity additions on an annual basis. In total, solar accounted for 39 percent of new capacity additions across all fuel types, and these big numbers are coming via big installs asRead More

Services for solar inverters are improving markedly, from commissioning through replacement, as the flow of panel and string-level data becomes more granular, fueling more sophisticated monitoring systems. From string inverters at a commercial and industrial (C&I) level, to microinverters now dominant in the residential market, manufacturers are embracing dynamic improvementsRead More

The mid-term growth of the U.S. residential solar-plus-storage market will be nothing short of phenomenal, as the seamless melding of generation, storage and energy management emerges in single, overarching systems. Yes, we might finally be headed there — the 1950s vision of the all-electric GE kitchen of the future, butRead More