Not all appliances are made equal. Although every appliance in your home consumes energy, utilizing each one will have a different impact on your monthly electricity bill. Understanding which of your appliances use the most energy, as well as when they’re pulling power from the grid, can help you save substantially on your monthly utility bills.
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Ethical sourcing of solar components
The solar industry is very much a part of the global economy: its supply chain traverses countries, oceans and continents, sourcing raw materials from certain regions, manufacturing products in others, and, ultimately, sending solar products to home and business owners everywhere. With how interconnected the solar industry is, it’s important to be cognizant of where and how solar equipment is sourced. In lieu of recent credible reports of human rights abuses and forced labor in parts of China that feed into the solar supply chain, it’s worth looking at how to ensure that the solar equipment you purchase is ethically and sustainably sourced.
Before digging into this, a quick note: allegations of human rights abuses and other unethical practices are an atypical topic area for us. After all, we write about clean energy, not issues of geopolitical intrigue. But we don’t take these reports of human rights violations and forced labor lightly, and we want to make sure you’re aware of this ongoing investigation and have options to ensure your solar equipment is ethically produced.
Continue readingSungage Financial zero fee loan review
Solar loans are a very popular way to pay for a new solar or solar plus storage system, since they are a great way to take advantage of the benefits of solar ownership–from tax incentives to increased home value–without requiring you to have the cash on hand to pay for the full system up front. What’s more, many solar-specific loans offer low, fixed interest rates and flexible payment terms, helping you to find the monthly payment that’s right for you. However, a low interest rate (or APR) comes with a caveat: a low APR often means a high cost to borrow money. That cost or fee to borrow money is passed on to your installer, or even built into the overall cost of the project, making a tradeoff between the lowest monthly payment (i.e., low APR) and the lowest project cost (i.e., lowest cost to borrow money).
Recently, Sungage Financial, one of the most popular solar loan providers on EnergySage, launched a zero fee solar loan to keep your solar project costs as low as possible. Here’s what that means for solar shoppers like you.
Continue readingHow have solar equipment costs declined over time?
Over the last decade, the costs of solar have decreased from over $8 per Watt in 2009 ($/W) to $2.75/W in 2019 on EnergySage, a decline of more than 65 percent in 11 years. Over this timeframe, a primary driver of the declining cost of solar in the US has been technological improvements in the actual hardware that’s included in solar energy systems: solar panels and solar inverters.
Continue readingEconomic benefits of renewable energy
As renewable energy becomes more widely adopted throughout the United States, it is worth pausing to take stock of the economic benefits associated with increased levels of solar, wind and other renewable energy resources. From providing lower cost electricity to generating reliable, local jobs and to avoiding costly externalities associated with emissions from burning fossil fuels, renewable energy is an economic boon.
Continue readingTesla solar renting vs. leasing vs. buying solar panels
Tesla’s recently announced solar rental program was met with high hopes, as a program with the potential to make solar more accessible to more homeowners. With a sense of how the program works, the question becomes: how do the savings from renting solar panels form Tesla compare to the savings from owning or leasing solar panels?
Continue readingSchneider Energy Center review
The modern home is a smart home, with everything from voice activated speakers to thermostats you can control from your home. But to truly be “smart” about your own home, you need to have insight into–and control over–more than just the color of your desk lamp. Enter smart panels: the new technology that’s taking home energy insights and the solar-plus industry to the next level. One such smart panel is Schneider Electric’s Square D Energy Center. We sat down with the team at Schneider to learn more about their brand new product.
Continue readingAn overview of the 2020 National Solar Jobs Census
Every year, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Solar Foundation, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) and BW Research release the National Solar Jobs Census. Each release is a great opportunity to take a step back and take stock of the solar industry, and this year’s report–which was launched earlier this month–is no different. Taking a look back at 2020, this year’s Solar Jobs Census chronicles the impact of COVID-19 on the solar workforce, tracks efforts to diversify the solar industry, and looks to the future for how many workers the solar industry will employ under different policy scenarios. Spoiler alert: we’re all hiring!
Continue readingSolar carve-outs
More than thirty states in the United States currently have renewable energy policies. Most of these goals, targets, and mandates allow for compliance from a range of different types of renewable energy technologies. In a few cases, however, states have included a technology-specific mandate as a part of their renewable energy policies. One such policy mechanism is a solar carve-out.
Continue readingQ&A with SMA
Outside of solar panels, solar inverters are the most important part of a solar energy system, responsible for converting electricity generated by your solar panels into usable electricity for your home’s electronics and appliances. When it comes to deciding which equipment is best for your solar panel system, you have many different inverters to choose from, including options for both the type of technology (string vs. microinverter vs. string + power optimizers), and well as the inverter brand.
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