Only 6.6% of US climate tech venture capital funding went to female founders last year. That comes to 21 out of 319 climate tech funding rounds in the U.S. and only 58 funding deals compared to the 826 rounds awarded to male founders in climate tech globally.

This community solar lender for small to mid-sized projects gives an inside glimpse into what they are looking for. He talks about being mission driven re helping LMIs and also advises keeping capital structure as simple as possible, making them their only debt financier, and ensuring that cash flow analysis makes sense (among other things).

Engineers from NERC and ESIG agree that upgraded inverters with GFM (“grid-forming” capabilities) are vital to support the growing penetration of inverter-based resources like solar. This is in the face of rising concerns about grid reliability leading to fluctuations.

Barry Cinnamon offers his annual article of 10 predictions for the industry heading into 2024. They include the idea that fewer than half of the new manufacturing plants will be completed, more states will pull a NEM 3.0, national-scale solar install companies will flounder, and the resi battery system sector will consolidate.

CALSSA has shared a new breakdown of recent solar job losses CA due to NEM 3.0. They report business closures and “depression-level layoffs.” Numbers are that 17,000 jobs across all counties have or will be lost by the end of 2023, 22% of all solar jobs in the state.

Solar Builder and Baywa.re discuss the year in review and look to 2024 re opportunities and troublesome areas. Topics: what defined solar in 2023, which 2023 projections were off, the latest on UFLPA detentions and the outlook on supplies, resi forecasts, questions installers should be asking themselves, new opportunities, and worries about CA. The video is below.