Energy Wire offers a round up of nine federal officials to watch at FERC, the DOE and the Interior who will be shaping clean energy deployment and interstate transmission this year. The list includes David Crane whose guiding the use of $20 billion to help deploy clean energy at commercial scale, the role of the FERC chair yet to appointed, and Karin Herzfeld as senior transmission counsel who is tackling commission’s efforts to grow high-voltage power lines and reduce clean energy bottlenecks.
This SPW article advises installers on how to sell whole home resi systems – particularly when looking to tap the opportunities available with solar+storage. It looks at full home vs. critical load, cost, key install issues to address, space and aesthetics plus safety and performance. It also casts an eye on the future of the whole home/full-home market.
Allette and Grid United have partnered up to build the first HVDC power transmission line connecting three ISO regions. The 385-mile line will connect central North Dakota to Colstrip, Montana and is set to begin project permitting by 2029, depending on regulatory approvals.
SPW takes stock of the PV module market as it pertains to installers. The discuss the current oversupply situation, the rippling effect of the detainments under the UFLPA, the drop in global pricing, and the sudden importance of 400 W (and what it means for manufacturing).
Aurora offers info on how to sell solar during a time of high interest rates. They discuss questions to ask homeowners to have them focus on the salient points re money saving, focusing on incentives and financing, looking at resilience and lifetime value of a system, and doing the math around interest rates.
Fronius offers this webinar that digs into how to mitigate design and installation flaws to optimize system output. They look at common PV design misconceptions and ways to avoid them. Topics include right and wrong practices and how to simplify them plus ways to imply tech to improve design and add value. They also demo their free Solar.creator PV design tool. The video is below.