In this week’s Solar News Roundup, Sunrun announces plans to acquire leading competitor Vivint Solar, and Oregon’s largest utility company, Portland General Electric, joins the growing number of utility companies investing in virtual power plants.
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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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This post is the first in our series about how to save on your energy bills even when you’re spending more time at home, as the entire EnergySage team is, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue to check our blog for more ideas for how you can take control of your energy bills in the coming weeks.
You may have heard that the world is basically on pause right now. The impact of the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus appears to be vast, far-reaching, and multilayered, including in some ways that you may not anticipate. For instance, with so many Americans now working from home or sheltering in place, one way you may see the impact of the pandemic personally is in how your energy bills change now that you’re spending more time at home.
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The electricity system is changing, from the way we generate power to the way we distribute and use it. All grid-tied energy systems are situated either “in front of the meter” or “behind the meter”, and as more and more electric customers take control of their production and usage, it is important to understand the fundamental differences between these two positions on the larger electric grid.
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If you’re considering installing solar panels, one of your top questions may be how long it will take after signing a contract to finish your solar project. There are a number of factors that determine this timeline – in this article, we’ll discuss those factors, as well as the average estimated timeframes for a solar panel installation from start to finish.
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In the past few years, utilities across the country — from Indiana to Massachusetts to Arizona — proposed mandatory or voluntary demand charges for residential customers. With the right resources and knowledge, it is definitely possible to reduce your monthly bill on a demand charge rate. But in many situations, including often for people with solar on their roof, demand charges can lead to more expensive bills overall.
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Renewable sources of energy are not only changing where we get our power from, but also how the fundamental economics of getting power work. This shift is creating challenges for utilities across the country, but New York is investigating using a system where utilities do a different job and it might be the next step towards making it easier to get solar panels in NY. Continue reading
Reading Time: 2 minutesAccording to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the price consumers in New York are paying for electricity today is 40 percent more than it was a decade ago. At the same time the price of natural gas, the basic fuel that is most often used to produce energy in the state has fallen by 39 percent. So why are New Yorkers paying more for their power? The WSJ postulates that utilities have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on updates to the grid in order to raise rates and make more money. Continue reading
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Can you draw power from your solar system when the sun isn’t shining? If you have a way of storing the electricity the system has produced you can. Batteries have long been used for solar power storage, but haven’t been popular until recently. With Tesla Motors announcement of a new battery for residential solar storage, it may be within the reach of many solar system users soon. Continue reading
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Most of the time your relationship with your electrical utility company is pretty straightforward, but what happens when that relationship changes because you’ve installed solar on your property? The type of utility you have has a big impact on how your solar energy production is measured and accounted for when you have a solar electric system installed. The first step in understanding your relationship to your utility is understanding what kind of utility company you have. Continue reading
