While installing solar can save you money on your electric bill and reduce your carbon emissions, homeowners are going even further and using solar electricity to charge their electric car. Thanks to an innovative new product from SolarEdge, powering your car with solar electricity is easier than ever.
Continue readingUsing NREL’s PVWatts calculator for solar
If you’re starting to think about installing solar at your home or business, you may have come across PVWatts, a calculator developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Continue readingSolar news: May 4th, 2018
In this week’s Solar News Roundup, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduce a bill to block Trump’s solar tariffs, and GTM Research reports that third-party ownership of solar systems is at its lowest since 2011.
Continue readingWhat is the history of solar energy and when were solar panels invented?
Though solar energy has found a dynamic and established role in today’s clean energy economy, there’s a long history behind photovoltaics (PV) that brought the concept of solar energy to fruition. With the way the cost of solar has plummeted in the past decade, it’s easy to forget that going solar had a completely different meaning even just 15 years ago. Let’s go back a few centuries to the origins of solar PV and explore the history of solar energy and silicon solar technology.
Continue readingTesla Energy announces solar partnership with Home Depot
(Note: in June 2018, Tesla announced they will be ending their partnership with Home Depot. They are pulling out of Home Depot stores, and selling their products exclusively through their own website and stores.)
In February 2018, Tesla announced a partnership with home-improvement giant Home Depot to sell and promote Tesla Energy solar installations. As a result, we’ve been receiving lots of questions about the new Tesla Home Depot partnership from shoppers on the EnergySage Solar Marketplace.
Through the partnership, Tesla will be setting up large displays of Tesla Energy products so that shoppers can see them up close in about 800 stores across the country. Displays will be staffed with Tesla Energy employees to answer questions and talk to shoppers about installing solar.
Continue readingNational Grid solar incentives: Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Growth program
Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Growth (RE Growth) Program is a performance-based incentive (PBI) that offers financial benefits to National Grid customers who install solar on their home. PBIs pay owners of solar energy systems for the electricity produced by their system. PBIs help system owners recover the costs of installing a solar energy system and earn an attractive return.
Continue readingSolar reviews: how to evaluate solar installers
There are thousands of solar companies operating in the United States, most of which have been reviewed by customers online. If you’re thinking about installing solar, reviews can help you determine which company will offer the best prices, good customer service, and an attractive solar panel system design for your home or business.
Continue readingHow you can get Costco solar panels from Sunrun
If you regularly shop at Costco, you may have spotted a kiosk for home solar installations in the store, or even spoken to a store representative about installing their own branded Costco solar panels. Costco has a partnership with Sunrun, one of the largest residential solar companies in the country, to offer their members special benefits when they go solar. Here are the details of Costco’s partnership with Sunrun.
Solar news: April 20th, 2018
In this week’s Solar News Roundup, SunPower acquires SolarWorld Americas, and Apple announces that their global facilities are 100% powered by clean, renewable energy.
Continue readingHighlights from EnergySage’s sixth Solar Marketplace Intel Report™
This week, EnergySage released its sixth Solar Marketplace Intel Report™. In this report, you’ll find trends on solar pricing for all of 2017, as well as equipment and financing options for solar. In addition, this report includes new information about what solar equipment quality people prefer. Read on for some of the top takeaways relevant to today’s solar shoppers.
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