The DOJ has launched a new Office of Environmental Justice to serve as a watchdog for underserved and vulnerable populations disproportionately impacted by climate change, environmental crime and pollution. These groups include indigenous, low-income and communities of color. The new office will work in tandem with its new environmental justice enforcement strategy.

Solar design software company EagleView discusses how to reduce soft costs and speed up sales to install time. They suggest pinpointing inefficiencies in sales and operations workflow around customer acquisition and design, tapping remote measurement tech to make site assessment easier, and bypassing the need for preliminary designs by using the right software/tools to generate install-ready designs from the getgo.

California Rep Scott Peters addressed DOE Secretary Granholm at the fiscal year 2023 budget meeting and called on the dept to end the anti-circ case and lift damaging tariffs. He cited meeting Biden’s long-term sustainability goals and loss of jobs and talked about “the tail wagging the dog” given that the DOE is saying their hands are tied. Despite his appeal, it was not apparent that Granholm was going to take action.

An expert at HellermannTyton looks at sticky issues to avoid when routing bifacial module wires in solar tracker torque tubes. He looks at why a torque tube can be problematic and discusses pinch points to watch for and PV cable issues that pop up. His solutions include better airflow, less contact with metal directly and clearance from those pinch points.

Solar Builder has a roundup of the key moments at last month’s 2022 NABCEP Continuing Education Conference. They move through sales vs. operations when building company culture, viewing solar products as commodities and why it’s relevant, defining “agile” and “resilient”, the specifics about short, medium and long-term procurement strategies, effectively working with distributors and hot project models to watch. The video Is below.

In this first video in a ten-part training series of key concepts for people looking to buy a solar system, Kerim Baran of Solar Academy describes the basic components of a rooftop solar system. Part of his discussion includes a description of the typical system size/wattage generated. The 2-minute video is below. The entire series can be viewed here.