Educating the Solar Industry: A Conversation with John Cromer of Community.Solar
The number of workers in the solar industry has grown rapidly over the last decade. The Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census found that the industry added over 51,000 jobs in 2016 alone, finishing the year with a total of over 260,000 solar workers nationwide. One out of every 50 new U.S. jobs came from the solar industry in 2016, with 44 of the 50 states increasing the size of their solar workforce. This massive influx of new workers has created strong demand for education and training.
Utah: Rocky Mountain Power & Solar Industry Advocates agree on alternative Net Metering program
The Public Service Commission (PSC) of Utah unanimously approved a settlement deal, reached between Rocky Mountain Power and a group of solar industry advocates, which ends the utility’s full retail credit Net Metering (NEM) program. This effectively means that new solar customers will no longer be reimbursed at a full 1:1 credit for extra energy they export back to the grid. The Utah Solar Energy Association, who was a signatory to the settlement deal commented that “this compromise, which comes with challenges, maintains solar as an affordable and secure investment, encourages self-reliance and promotes choice in our energy market.”
Energy Toolbase Launches New Software Update that Enables Users to Model Energy Storage Projects
Energy Toolbase, a software platform for modeling the economics of solar and energy storage projects, recently launched a major software update that revolutionizes the platform’s energy storage modeling capabilities. The new release enables users to transparently quantify the dollar savings for any type of behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage project. This empowers developers in both the residential and commercial market to identify the best storage use-cases, more efficiently focus their development resources, and close deals.
New Net Metering Rules Approved by Nevada Public Utilities Commission
The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of Nevada approved a draft order that will implement new Net Energy Metering (NEM) rules and regulations for NV Energy. Under the new rules, rooftop solar customers who export energy back to the grid will be compensated at 95 percent of the retail electricity rate. The new order calls for export rate compensation levels to gradually decline as tranches of capacity are reached. The order requires that NV Energy charge solar and non-solar customers the same fees.
New Hampshire PUC Makes Cuts to Net Metering Program
The New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission issued a new order, making cuts to the state’s Net Energy Metering (NEM) program. The order maintains full retail credit for monthly net excess generation for supply but will no longer give credit for non-bypassable charges (NBC’s) like the system benefits charge. The decision removes the existing NEM caps and offers grandfathering to current customers.
How Run On Sun Reduced Proposal Generation Time and Optimized Project Savings Utilizing Energy Toolbase
Run on Sun is a residential and commercial solar installation company that was founded in 2006 by a group of businessmen, entrepreneurs, and engineers who wanted to leverage their diverse backgrounds to build a better solar company. Run on Sun was founded in part based on a negative experience one of their friends had after deciding to go solar. After selecting a well-known company, they had to wait a full year for their system to be installed, after which point it didn’t work properly.
How Solar Installers Can Leverage Digital Marketing Strategies to Increase Online Lead Generation
It’s well documented that the rooftop solar market is becoming increasingly competitive for solar developers and installers. This is especially true in more mature markets like California, where hundreds of companies compete within the same geography for new leads and customers. This inundated market environment has driven customer acquisition costs higher, and presented a challenge for solar companies in their marketing and lead generation activities.
Customer Case Study: How Renova Solar Navigated Rate Changes and Increased Efficiency Utilizing Energy Toolbase
Renova Energy Corporation (also known as Renova Solar) was founded in 2006 by Vincent Battaglia after he envisioned the company during his MBA program thesis. Today, Renova Solar is a full-service integrator, designing and installing solar and energy storage systems for both residential and commercial customers. About ten years after …
A Sales Platform for Energy Storage Projects
We’re excited about the upcoming launch of our energy storage software update. This new release is the culmination of a lot of learning for us. We have been planning this new build for a year and our engineering team has been developing it over the last several months. We are incorporating a lot of product feedback from energy storage manufacturers and developers who have been using our application over the last couple of years.
Meet Our Account Management Team
Since the early days of Energy Toolbase, we’ve taken pride in offering our clients personalized, one-on-one support. To this day, each and every client, whether they’ve been with us from the beginning or are just starting a free trial, gets assigned a dedicated Account Manager. Our platform can be used for many different types of projects (i.e. residential, commercial, solar, storage, etc.) across the country, so we want to make sure that we spend one-on-one time with each of our clients getting things configured to their specific needs. Also, we didn’t want to become one of those software companies where customers have to wait days to get a response to a question, or call in with an issue just to get lost in a phone tree.