10 Things Worth Reading This Week (6/25/21)

Sol-Ark does a live demo of their sizing calculator in this half hour video. They show how the free online tool helps installers provide clients with accurate load calculations and demos on how their appliances use energy. The tool estimates needed amount of battery storage as well as projected savings.

Interconnection and use of inverter-based resources usage on the BPS must be improved or the grid is vulnerable to electric reliability issues. Better system forecasting and new inverter tech can help solar provide the inertia of traditional synchronous generation.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is pushing for domestic lithium battery capabilities via an advanced battery manufacturing value chain. America has a total lack of raw material refining capacity. She pointed to govt funding and an upcoming private-partnership on the lithium battery supply chain that should help.

In this short video Mosaic’s CEO explains how their res solar loan with the lowest APR in the market helps streamline the solar sales process. The loan has a 0.99% APR for a 20-year loan and 1.99% APR for a 25-year loan. Prospects can be approved almost instantly via a new sharable URL.

As part of The Coalition for Clean Energy Jobs and Innovation, 100+ clean energy advocacy organizations are pushing Congress and the Biden admin to include 2 provisions in the infrastructure legislation: a 10-year extension of the section 25D and 48 ITC and a direct pay option for projects.

Solar PPA prices are increasing due to the market’s inability to provide solar installs in numbers that keep up with growing demand from corporations and governments. Other factors include high prices for developers, price increases due to more storage being added, and interconnection backlogs.

Sunport Power has three new panels that use their metal wrap-through back-contact tech: the C10 with higher efficiency and lower voltage, the C10-Pro with heterojunction tech, and the M series bifacial. The C10-Pro boasts a 22.8% conversion efficiency and 700 W of total panel output.

The U.S. CBP has issued a ban on silicon-based products made by the Chinese manufacturer Hoshine due to forced labor practices. The ban includes solar panels containing Hoshine materials. It only impacts a fraction of U.S. imports but does forecast more widespread bans in the future for the region.

Oracle announced that it will power its global operations – facilities and cloud – with 100% renewable energy by 2025 (with 51 offices already there). Amazon is adding 14 new projects in North America (11 in the US) and Europe that will bring their total renewable energy investments to 10 GW.

Aurora’s series details causes of PV solar system energy production loss: 1) nameplate, mismatch, and light-induced degradation; 2) wiring, connections and system availability; 3) soiling and snow; 4) tilt/orientation, incident angle modifier, environmental conditions, and inverter clipping.