Tag Archives: residential
The Potential of DIY Solar
As permitting gets easier and cities start streamlining the process, the market for simplified Do-It-Yourself solar array kits could grow. That’s a market Florida-based Peak Solar is fully prepared to take advantage of. The company has been selling integrated solar and inverter kits for three years. While they’re marketed on the company’s website as DIY [...]
Going Solar By Paying Your Utility Bill
So far, my experience is that environmentalists and business executives often speak different languages. Take the basic idea of sustainability. To an environmentalist, sustainability, as applied to a business, refers to the amount of environmental damage it will cause over time. To a business person, the term refers to the ability of the business to [...]
Residential vs. Commercial Energy Use
Combined, buildings in the United States consume 40% of all energy. But these buildings are not created equal. The important first step in reducing energy use in buildings is to understand what type of building it is, and what the occupants are there to do. A school will have different energy consumption habits than a [...]
The Hawaiian Electric Company: Utility Solar Done Right
Our 2013 Utility Solar Champion Award goes to … drumroll please … The Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO). Here’s why. The Hawaiian solar market is taking off. Just skyrocketing. Check this article out: “In 2012, a total of 16,715 PV permits were issued [in Oahu], a figure more than 170 percent of the previous 10+ years’ [...]
Daylight Savings: Longer Days = More Solar
If the start of Daylight Savings Time has left you tired after losing an hour of sleep, we have some great news to cheer you up! The start of Daylight Savings Time means that Summre is almost here, which means that we will be seeing increased hours of daylight. This is great news for outdoor [...]
OneRoof Energy Raises $100M
Residential solar financing companies are continuing to expand, thanks to homeowner demand and financiers willing to invest. Most recently OneRoof Energy has joined the fray, completing an agreement to invest in up to $100 million in residential solar projects. That brings the company’s total up to more than $200 million in funding. The recent agreement [...]
Solar Freedom Now: On A Mission to Lower Cost of Rooftop Solar
The recently formed solar advocacy organization Solar Freedom Now (SFN) is on a mission to reduce the cost of rooftop solar. This week it released a new white paper, ‘A Roadmap for Reducing Rooftop Solar Costs by 50%’. The white paper is aimed at how the organization plans to reduce the soft costs of solar [...]
In Focus: Calculating Monthly Solar Savings
Solar Installers get a lot of calls from consumers who are unsure how to work out how much their solar power system is saving them. The most common mistake made by consumers is to open their power bill and assume that their system has only saved them the amount of the credit that is listed [...]
SolarCity+Honda=Solar Financing Enterprise?
Solar energy company SolarCity and automaker Honda have joined forces to increase access to solar power for their customers. The partnership establishes an investment fund to finance $65 million in solar projects to assist Honda and Acura (Honda’s luxury division) customers with the initial cost of solar power installation. Millions of Honda and Acura customers [...]