In this week’s news roundup, we discuss an exciting investment in renewable energy for our home state of Massachusetts, and progress towards achieving net zero emissions in New Jersey.
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In February 2021, Tesla announced that it had purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and planned to accept the cryptocurrency as payment, causing the price of Bitcoin to soar to record high numbers. However, three months later, Elon Musk disrupted the cryptocurrency market when he tweeted, “Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin,” citing concerns about “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.” Overnight, the Bitcoin market dropped by almost 10 percent–so how founded are these environmental concerns in cryptocurrency mining, and could cryptocurrency have a clean energy future?
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If you’ve already started exploring your inverter options, you may have noticed that many products come with a 25-year warranty. However, simply comparing the length of one warranty term to the next doesn’t give you a full picture: what is and isn’t included in a warranty differs quite a bit from one inverter company to the next. And considering how important a solar inverter is to the functionality of your system, you want to make sure you’re covered in case anything goes awry.
In this article, we’ll review the most important aspects of a solar inverter warranty, and discuss what’s standard for the industry.
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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.
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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!
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In February 2021, Panasonic announced that during fiscal year 2022 (ending in March 2022), it will stop producing photovoltaic (PV) modules (aka solar panels). This announcement created some confusion about Panasonic’s future role in the solar industry, causing some to wonder if the company will stop selling solar panels altogether. However, according to Panasonic’s press release, this is not the case! The company stated that it will “continue to sell outsourced photovoltaic modules as it has been doing in North America.” So the question is: how does this shift in production impact the company and its customers?
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The word “degradation” can be scary, but don’t let it frighten you too much: every product, from your cell phone to your shoes, degrades over time, and solar panels are no exception to this rule. Fortunately, solar panels degrade at a very slow rate relative to other technologies – in fact, even after 25 years, most solar panels will still generate at least 80 percent of their original solar power output!
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At EnergySage, we get a lot of questions about alternative ways to support renewable energy without putting solar panels on your roof. One of the easiest ways to do so is buying electricity from someone other than your utility company. But there are a lot of options out there, each one surrounded by a good deal of misinformation and jargon, making it somewhat difficult to weigh the pros and cons of each.
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In this week’s weekly news roundup, we discuss several important updates from Tesla and a promising new report on the future of U.S. energy storage.
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Texas recently experienced a series of devastating power outages that some are blaming on its instability caused by its deregulated electricity market. However, proponents of deregulation say that it can help cut down on costs and improve services to customers. Given this recent discussion, we will explain what having a deregulated electricity market means, how Texas’ electric choice affects customers, and how it can impact your savings with solar.
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