Category Archives: EnergySage

Articles about EnergySage’s involvement in the solar industry and other company news.

We read AXITEC’s warranty so you don’t have to

Let’s face it – warranties aren’t the easiest (or most gripping) documents to read. There are often a lot of details and fine print included that can be hard to digest, leaving many to wonder: what does the warranty actually cover? Am I vulnerable? Anything I might be missing?

To make it as easy as possible, we’ve read warranty documents for the top solar equipment manufacturers–and talked to them to confirm what is and isn’t included–and plan to point out the most important aspects of each in a series of articles. This article reviews the warranty offering of AXITEC, a German-engineered solar panel manufacturer with locations around the world.

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Top EnergySage articles of 2020

Let’s all breathe a big sigh of relief – 2020 is almost over! Despite some hurdles, solar energy had a strong year full of exciting news and milestones; in their 2020 World Energy Outlook report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) proclaimed that solar will be the “new king of electricity,” the world’s largest solar plant went live in October (2.2 gigawatts!), and just this week, the federal government extended the 26 percent solar tax credit for another two years.

To finish off the end of a long year, we’ve pulled together a list of our most popular articles of 2020, as chosen by you, our readers.

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Types of thin-film solar panels

Have you ever come across “flexible solar panels,” or “stick-on solar panels”? Both fit under the wider umbrella of thin-film solar panels, which is a type of solar panel technology known for being lightweight. Compared to traditional solar panel cells, thin-film solar panels are made up of electricity-producing layers that are hundreds of times thinner than typical silicon cells. 

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Highlights from the eleventh EnergySage Solar Marketplace Intel Report

Last week, EnergySage released our eleventh Solar Marketplace Intel Report. The free, publicly available report provides insight into the state of the solar market nationwide and at the state level through July of 2020. In this report, we take a look at the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the solar industry, check in on how solar pricing compares on EnergySage to data from the rest of the market, and introduce a few brand new analyses of energy storage data, from cost to brand preference. A few key takeaways from the report are outlined below, and we look forward to your analysis and feedback on the report. 

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Federal ITC savings: 2020 vs. 2021

One question we field a lot at EnergySage is whether it’s the right time to install solar panels. For anyone asking that question in 2020, the answer is often as soon as possible: given the looming step down and expiration of the federal investment tax credit (ITC), solar shoppers who wait until 2021 or later to move forward will be missing out on major tax savings – but just how much?

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Case study: EnergySage solar installers share what they’ve learned during the coronavirus pandemic

The new reality of ‘remote selling’ is driving solar companies across the country to reevaluate their sales efforts and how they engage with potential customers. Consumer shopping behavior is changing quickly and is shifting to online platforms faster than ever as COVID-19 challenges traditional sales channels. 

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Highlights from the tenth EnergySage Solar Marketplace Intel Report

Last month, EnergySage released our tenth Solar Marketplace Intel Report. The free, publicly available report provides insight into the state of the solar market nationwide and at the state level through the end of 2019. While this particular report showcases entirely data from prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the look at 2019 solar data demonstrates the strength of the industry heading into the nationwide shutdowns. A few key takeaways from the report are outlined below, and we look forward to your analysis and feedback on the report. 

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What is distributed power? The parallels between distributed energy and cell phones

In 1994, only 10% of Americans had a cell phone. And yet, in 15 short years, more Americans had cell phones than landlines. While the rapid adoption of mobile phones can’t be attributed to a single factor, there is one major parallel between the transition from landlines to smart phones and what’s actively happening today in the electricity industry: the transition from a centralized system to a distributed (or decentralized) network.

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