Ten Things Worth Reading This Week (6/18/21)

Li-Cycle CCO Kunal Phalpher points to stationary energy storage systems as a significant market for end-of-life batteries and recycling that can help push for economic and environmental sustainability in the industry. In partnership with Renewance, Li-Cycle is working on cheap and sustainable battery processing from stationary energy storage systems.

This Unirac product training webinar demos how to install their latest res racking solutions on a mock roof. They look at Direct-to-Deck install methods and products and provided an overview of the current Rail and Rail-less design and tips. New products include the UAF Fastener and FlashLoc DUO.

In Q2 2021 the U.S. solar market passed the 100 GW mark of installed capacity, which is a doubling in industry size over the last 3.5 years. Problems include supply constraints on key inputs for modules/installs like polysilicon, steel, aluminum, semiconductor chips, and copper. This means compounding cost increases across all materials.

FERC and NARUC are creating a joint task force, the Joint Federal State Task Force on Electric Transmission, to address slow transmissions buildout that blocks clean energy goals and expanded solar and wind deployment. This includes looking at how states can work together to ID and develop regional transmission projects.

Solar surveyors can sometimes be the best closers. They act as the technical expert for the homeowner during the 60-90 min surveying time and the coolness of drones are a draw and reflect a modern approach that is appealing – plus they allow the surveyor to stay on the ground and talk to the prospect more than during a roof survey.

In this AltE webinar OutBack Power discusses exactly what the new UL 9540 code entails when being implemented in the field. Then they launch into a presentation of their new online System Edge Sizing Tool complete with PV string sizing and offer a tech deep dive into their current inverters and battery offerings.

In reality UL 3741 is too similar to Module Level Shutdown. It leaves the same safety issues with shutdown solutions unresolved and keeps the certification process costly and complicated. It also fails to offer a real use case and its description is vague. Better would be to solve these issues and allow for open standards and free market competition.

To help contractors with cash-flow concerns BayWa r.e. and GoodLeap have created a partnership that helps them finance their equipment from a single source, and therefore, one vendor, not multiple ones. BayWa has added GoodLeap into BayWa r.e.’s Split Pay financing program, an offering for their res solar and energy storage installers.

Democrats are trying to push climate legislation in the Senate. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is enacting the next “reconciliation” process to create spending and revenue measures immune to the filibuster. Schumer seeks funding for clean energy incentives that would cut power sector CO2 emissions by 80% by 2030 and offer consumer EV rebates.