Housing developments represent an underserved opportunity for solar – for developers, municipalities and end-users. However, you need to account for specific system specs, design and permitting considerations as well as the role of public funding and incentives. And the payoff around pushing for equity in renewable access for LMI communities is considerable for contractors – on both an ideological and a business level.
Think tank Rocky Mountain Institute has developed a new vision for community solar they’re calling community solar + (CS+). This next gen iteration of the model seeks to more effectively push for equity in solar and community-wide solar deployment. 6 value streams they pinpoint are faster investment in EV charging, better resilience for critical assets and vulnerable communities, synergy between the aging grid and customer demand, a more equal system overall, weather protection and addressing the urban heat island effect.
The first pairing of racking and inverter has made it through UL3741 PVHCS certified testing together with no MLPE or switches – an SMA + Sollega system. SMA America found that 1,000 volts within the array boundary was an option, allowing them to use the SMA CORE1 inverter itself as the means for controlling conductors leaving the array boundary — without having any other switches in the system. Solar Builder dives into the testing process and looks at how this could impact C&I solar installation strategies for companies.
In a 7 part series of studies NREL found that fast growth of energy storage will enable high shares of renewables on the grid and will lead to easier grid operation, fewer costly thermal start-ups and reduced emissions. Other findings include the idea that costs continue to drop, building-level energy storage deployment will increase as a source of backup power, storage duration will grow and energy storage is vital to reaching 100% clean energy deployment.
EnergySage breaks down the most popular inverters from 2021, based on their quote data. Hottest brands are Enphase and SolarEdge and the most commonly quoted and selected inverter on their Marketplace was Enphase’s IQ7PLUS-72-x-US-240. They break down the data on the top 10 products by state and discuss why the numbers look like they do (related to availability, distribution channels, preference, and cost).
Apparently Alaska’s solar resource is on par with that of Germany! This short video below created by developer Alaska Solar Ventures pulls back the curtain on the untapped state that is Alaska. They look at what the market looks like there – and you can read even more about it on the company’s website. The video is below.