SepiSolar Blogs Archives | Page 6 of 8

This interview of Jigar Shaw was led by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

SepiSolar was so grateful to have Jigar Shah, CEO of Generate Capital, to join us for our monthly Ask SepiSolar Anything! webinar series.

This post contains an interview of Jigar Shaw, led by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

Join us for the next Ask SepiSolar Anything with Jigar Shah, co-founder of Generate Capital and co-host of Greentech Media’s Energy Gang podcast.

As with all Ask SepiSolar Anything’s, Jigar will join us live via a web meeting and answer any question you might have about solar finance, solar business models, solar entrepreneurship, pitching VCs, energy storage, or … anything.

If you’re not familiar with his solar and clean energy advocacy career, Jigar Shah is well known for pioneering the first solar power purchase agreement (PPA) when he co-founded SunEdison in 2003. After SunEdison was acquired in 2008, Jigar co-founded Generate Capital, a specialty finance company that partners with project developers and technology manufacturers to finance clean energy, water, food, and other critical resources. He’s also the author of Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy and was the first CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Carbon War Room, co-founded by Sir Richard Branson.

SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner will start off the questioning and then hand over the web microphone to you! To ask Jigar Shah your questions, mark your calendar and register here for the webinar link info.

When: Tuesday, October 16, 2018, 11am-12pm Pacific, 2pm-3pm ET

Where: Online. Please register to get the web link and reminders:

This post contains thought leadership by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert and Richard Dobbins. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

If you’re just getting started installing solar with energy storage for residential and commercial applications, you know that getting energy storage permits approved is challenging. Not only are you newto energy storage, but your local AHJ may also be new to storage, or the brand of battery that you’re using, or the chemistry.

To address these challenges, SepiSolar recently did an Ask SepiSolar Anything webinar on energy storage permitting requirements. As you’ll see below, we received some great questions and some great answers on the best practices for getting storage project through permitting. We also share a few resources.

Perhaps the best advice that CEO Josh Weiner and Chief Engineer Richard Dobbins gave in this session is that your energy storage designers need to “spell it out.” That is, don’t leave your plan checker guessing about the applicable codes or interpretation. In the case of energy storage, less is not more. More info is better.

The full video is well worth watching, you can also click on the time code and jump to each specific question. Enjoy.

01:17 Josh updates us on SepiSolar’s long history with energy storage permitting challenges through the years and why it’s so challenging in 2018.

13:00 Josh shares info about a report from a San Jose fire captain Matthew Paiss called Energy Storage Systems Safety that does an apples-to-apples non-brand comparison of the fire safety concerns of lithium energy storage, flow batteries, and lead-acid chemistries. Find it here.

16:42 Does SepiSolar have any experience with large apartment building emergency backup systems that meet fire and life safety codes? (Short answer, yes we do.)

24:34 Do you have any resources for municipalities who are developing energy storage permitting guidelines? (We have thoughts, but IREC has created a guide.)

26:25 Based on SepiSolar’s experience, what manufacturers offer the best inverter products for energy storage?

31:26 What’s the most common mistake people make when submitting energy storage permits?

39:32 Do you have a recommendation for an integrated solution for a small hospital, low-carbon resiliency microgrid project? (Yep.)

45:32 We’ve heard about the mistakes people make to get energy permits rejected. What are the best practices for getting permits approved?

51:12 I’m submitting energy storage plans for the first time. Is there a guide for how to do the line drawings for residential energy storage designs?

54:50 Does SepiSolar specialize in any particular size or type of energy storage projects?

As always, if you have any more energy storage questions, always feel free to contact us. We’re happy to help. And if you’re not on SepiSolar’s newsletter list, sign up to get more useful info.

This post was written by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all energy storage permitting requirements were the same? Sadly, we all know that energy storage permitting requirements vary greatly across the U.S.

In fact, as solar and battery prices decline, many authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) are seeing storage projects and a variety of battery technologies come across their desks for the first time. Likewise, many solar contractors are submitting their designs to their local jurisdictions for the first time.

In our latest edition of Ask SepiSolar Anything, SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner and Chief Electrical Engineer Richard Dobbins, PE, will answer any of your questions about energy storage permitting requirements and best practices for getting your energy storage designs approved. Join us!

What: Ask SepiSolar Anything: Energy Storage Permitting Requirements

When: Wednesday, September 12, 2018, 11am PST, 2pm EST

Where: Sign up and get reminders and a link to the webinar. (Also, if you miss the episode, you’ll get an email with a link to the recording.)

This post was written by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

“How do you sell C&I solar+storage?” Some might answer, “the same way you sell solar,” but it’s not that simple. In fact, if you’ve tried to sell solar with residential or C&I (commercial & industrial) energy storage, you’ve probably found that nothing about storage is “Plug & Play.”

As Josh stated in this Ask SepiSolar Anything episode, “Energy storage is a dream project–or product– for engineers. It’s a dream product because it’s a financial problem, it’s a technical problem, and it’s also a sales problem on how to articulate these systems to the private sector. It can be extremely complex and difficult.”

It’s because of this complexity that we have our monthly Ask SepiSolar Anything webinars. While SepiSolar does do NABCEP training about solar+storage, we realize that contractors and developers have specific questions about the technical and financial modeling aspects of selling C&I (and residential) storage.

14 C&I Solar + Storage Questions and Tips

Below is a run-down of the audience questions with a time code. Click on the time code and you’ll jump to a new tab with the answers from SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner and Systems Engineer John Henley. (We had some intermittent technical issues with the visuals, but you should be able to hear everything.)

00:00 Josh shares his experience selling C&I storage with Green Charge Networks
08:34 What’s the minimum size of storage required to offset to perform demand reduction?
11:27 We’re a small solar installer, mostly residential, but people are starting to ask us about storage. Any beginner’s advice?
19:39 Does the solar system size make a difference on whether or not you use an AC or DC-coupled storage system?
21:33 Are you limited to the size of the solar system on the site with storage? Or does solar change or limit of the size of a storage system?
23:20 I’ve been trying to find information to do a return on investments for doing peek shaving for one of my clients. They use about 2 MWhs per year. Is there a financial modeling service out there or any calculators that I can use?
24:53 Do you use the algorithms from the different storage manufacturers in your calculations?
27:58 Are you seeing developers returning to their customer to add energy storage to the original solar generation assets?
31:44 I’m doing some work for an irrigation district. Is there a way to store energy for their big pumping times? They have 400 horsepower wells.
34:28 Does SepiSolar handle off-grid projects, for example, microgrid projects with solar plus storage, plus a generator, as well as only grid-tied?
36:43 When do you think the commercial customer needs a microgrid, as opposed to just solar plus storage? Is there some way to define that?
41:22 Josh offers some more C&I selling tips, including his perspective on Time of Use (TOU) arbitrage.
44:15 We have a few customers who don’t have historical usage data because they’ve been off grid marijuana growers. Can we model their usage, or would you recommend that they wait until they’re up and running for at least a year?
47:00 Josh offers some more C&I market insights on where storage is needed and tells you about SepiSolar Academy, our new NABCEP SepiSolar Training for PV and Storage.

Join us for the next Ask SepiSolar Anything

We asked what you’d like to see for the next Ask SepiSolar Anything topic, and the winner is… Energy Storage Permitting requirements. Josh and the team will be fielding your questions on the best practices for getting your residential and commercial energy storage projects approved.

This episode will take place on Wednesday, September 12, 2018 at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern.

Of course, if you have any questions before then, please always feel free to contact us!

This post was written by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

How do you sell C&I energy storage without overwhelming prospects with jargon and giving just the right amount of technical and financial modeling information? SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner and Systems Engineer John Henley will be answering any C&I energy storage sales and financial modeling questions at our next Ask SepiSolar Anything, Tuesday, August 14, at 11 am Pacific/2pm Eastern!

From demand charge reduction to energy arbitrage or backup power for critical loads, commercial and industrial businesses turn to solar+storage for many different pain points. Some are financial, some have to do with grid reliability, some want self-sufficiency, and some have corporate sustainability goals. And then there are those facility managers who will pay almost any price to keep their machines and data centers running 24/7 during the next natural disaster.

SepiSolar’s Josh Weiner and John Henley have years of experience consulting with clients on how to sell and design C&I energy storage from a technical sales perspective, providing easy-to-digest language and data points that don’t overwhelm prospects with jargon or too much information.

After a brief sales tips and best practices presentation, Josh and John will answer any question about energy storage sales and financial modeling for your C&I solar+storage prospects. RSVP to this interactive “Car Talk for Solar” webinar!

This post was written by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

“Where are we on the energy storage adoption curve?” That’s one of the questions a participant asked at our latest monthly Ask SepiSolar Anything “Car Talk for Solar” webinar series. It’s the only place on the web where solar professionals can ask SepiSolar’s solar+storage engineer experts anything about a particular renewable energy topic.

For July, our topic was to Ask SepiSolar Anything… about battery storage technologies. That is, about the technical aspects of different battery chemistries on the market today.

To offer a broad view than the typical Lithium-ion energy storage landscape, SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner invited Matt Harper, the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Avalon Battery, a Vanadium flow battery company based in Fremont, California.

Together, Josh and Matt tag-teamed on the answers, offering various perspectives and case study examples of their years of experience in developing and modeling energy storage for various applications.

From the live audience at Intersolar and on the web, we received the following questions. Jump to the topic that most interests you in the time stamp at the end of the question:

Overview of Energy Storage Technology Landscape 00:01
Matt Harper briefly describes Avalon Battery and its Vanadium flow battery technology 01:40
Question 1: Please give a concrete example of a project that has integrated electric vehicles with solar and storage in some kind of a project or a use case 07:00
Question 2: There are a lot of flow battery technologies out there. Zinc Iron, Zinc Bromide, Iron-Iron, etc. Why Vanadium? What makes it so special? 12:48
Question 3: If you have a grid-tied inverter already installed, how would you integrate a battery into that, perhaps aftermarket? 17:55
Question 4: What are the HVAC requirements for Avalon and other flow batteries? 21:27
Question 5: Does the efficiency level of Vanadium Batteries change at cold temperatures? 27:30
Question 6: I have an existing PV array that uses SMA inverters, two strings with a total of 6kW. Can it work with a flow battery? 29:20
Question 7: Where are we on the energy storage adoption curve? i.e., Utility vs DG projections? 45:51
Question 8: When will batteries—of all kinds—be cheap enough and available enough to combine with solar, wind, etc and replace a baseload natural gas plant. That is when will utilities have a choice between a baseload natural gas plant and a solar+storage plant? 47:04

Have a question about selling solar+storage for commercial projects? Then tune in next month for Ask SepiSolar Anything about Selling C&I Energy Storage. Click the button below to sign up!

This post was contrbuted by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

SepiSolar came, SepiSolar saw, SepiSolar celebrated! If you missed Intersolar North America 2018, here are some visual highlights from our time at the show!

SepiSolar’s Marketing Director Tor Valenza meets up with solar advocate friends Yann Brandt (Solar Wake Up and the new President of Quickmount PV), Dave Rosenfeld (Executive Director Solar Rights Alliance) and Anne Hoskins, Chief Policy Officer at Sunrun.

*SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner was honored to be recognized at Intersolar North America as a Renewable Energy World “40 Under 40!”*

*SepiSolar’s Josh Weiner takes a photo with fellow 40 Under 40 Honorees.*

*SepiSolar’s Josh Weiner, right, talks to the Intersolar Tweetup crowd of 150 solar communicators about how engineers communicate through design.*

*SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner (aka @SepiSolarJosh) and Director of Marketing Tor @SolarFred Valenza have a serious discussion at the Intersolar Tweetup about beer, most likely.*

*Aside from the Tweetup having great spirits, there was also great food!*

*SepiSolar’s Marketing Director and Tweetup host Tor @SolarFred Valenza takes a selfie with fellow Tweeters behind Avalon Battery, Sunnova, and Vote Solar.*

*What happens at Intersolar’s Solar Battle of the Bands stays at Solar Battle of the Bands*…. Congrats to the winner SunPower and to our client NEXTracker and CALSSA for putting on a spectacular event! The music and food rocked.

SepiSolar’s Josh Weiner and Avalon Battery’s Matt Harper tag-teamed on Ask SepiSolar Anything, answering audience questions about battery technology. (A recording will be available here on the SepiSolar blog later this week.)

We had some terrific meetings with SepiSolar customers, friends, and fellow solar+storage advocates. If you missed us at Intersolar, contact us to meet up in person in Fremont or at Solar Power International in September!

This live interview was facilitated by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

If you’re not already installing solar+energy storage for your customers, you soon will be. But which energy storage technology is best? What’s the price per kWh? How long will the battery technology last? Are Lithium-based batteries really the best? How expensive are flow batteries? How about flywheels?

You can ask any of these questions–or anything else–and get an answer from SepiSolar’s CEO and storage expert, Josh Weiner. Also answering your questions will be our special battery technology guest, Matt Harper, Chief Product Officer of Avalon Battery.

Before Avalon, Matt was a former VP of Products and Marketing at Prudent Energy and has 9 years developing energy storage technologies. He holds 7 US patents.

In addition to being CEO of SepiSolar, Josh has been designing solar+storage systems since 2004 and was one of the early co-founders of Green Charge Networks (recently acquired by Engie.). He now consults with developers, as well as various storage manufacturers.

Over the years, Josh and Matt have separately studied many different battery technologies, and they’re both excited to be sharing their objective knowledge and opinions, answering any of your battery technology questions LIVE at the EES stage at Intersolar or on our usual web platform at the same time.

Join us for Ask SepiSolar Anything – Live from Intersolar!

Topic: Ask SepiSolar Anything about energy storage technologies. Josh will be answering questions with our special guest, Matt Harper, Chief Product Officer of Avalon Battery.

When: Thursday, July 12, at 1 pm Pacific.

Where: Sign up to get a link to watch via the web or be in the audience at Intersolar. Get all the info and a reminder here:

P.S. If you or your company are on Twitter and want to meet other solar people behind the solar brands on Twitter, RSVP for the 8th Annual Intersolar Tweetup, which @SepiSolar is sponsoring. Space is limited so get a ticket before Intersolar!

This post was written by Josh Weiner, Solar Expert Witness & Solar Engineering Expert. Mr. Weiner has been at the forefront of the solar energy industry for over 20 years and is an industry leader on solar-plus-storage engineering & design. Josh’s expertise spans both in-front of and behind-the-meter initiatives including residential, commercial, utility, grid-scale, and ev charging solar and storage applications.

If you missed our first Ask SepiSolar Anything with SepiSolar’s CEO Josh Weiner answering solar+energy storage questions, you can’t ask any more questions, but you can listen to the whole session here:

Josh tackled some great questions from people tuning in to this live and interactive program:

What are some of the common KW inverter sizes for C&I solar+storage? (at 11:12)
When you’re doing solar PV plus storage, what kind of interconnection requirements, like 120 percent rule, do people face? Are you seeing more AC or DC coupling on the system? (at 13:20).
For commercial solar+storage, who are the customers that would benefit the most from solar+storage, and who are the customers that aren’t yet ready? (at 20:40)
What type of energy storage is available and viable for the Florida residential and commercial market? Which brands? Also, does storage benefit from the 30% ITC credit if installed in conjunction with solar? (at 26:00)
For O&M requirements for lithium-ion batteries for C&I solar+storage applications, is there maintenance required on a yearly basis? Or is it bi-yearly? What kind of components need to be serviced? What kind need to be replaced? (at 30:15)
Is there an unbiased accurate chart from an independent testing lab of expected life cycles of all that all the battery brands? (Short answer, yes, but there’s only one that’s public.) (at 38:02)
How does energy solar PV and energy storage work with virtual net metering and aggregate net metering? (at 43:22)
What is the unit based cost for battery O&M? (at 47:10)

Join us for our next Ask SepiSolar Anything

If you have more questions about solar+storage, or energy storage or anything related to solar, join us for our July edition of Ask SepiSolar Anything. You can be in the audience and ask your questions live at Intersolar North America or tune in virtually.

Topic: Ask SepiSolar Anything about energy storage technologies. Josh will be answering questions with our special guest, Matt Harper, Chief Product Officer of Avalon Battery.

When: Thursday, July 12, at 1pm Pacific.

Where: Sign up to get a link to watch via the web or join us live at Intersolar. Get all the info and a reminder here!

P.S. If you’re on Twitter and want to meet other solar people behind the solar brands on Twitter, RSVP for the 8th Annual Intersolar Tweetup, which @SepiSolar is sponsoring. Space is limited.

SepiSearch

Jigar Shah on Bankability, Running Efficient Solar Companies, and Why Solar Shouldn’t Have National Permitting Standards

Ask SepiSolar Anything with Jigar Shah

Do’s and Don’ts for Getting Energy Storage Permits Approved

Ask SepiSolar Anything: Energy Storage Permitting Requirements

Selling C&I Solar+Storage Is Complicated. Here are 14 Tips

14 C&I Solar + Storage Questions and Tips

Join us for the next Ask SepiSolar Anything

How Do You Sell C&I Energy Storage? #AskSepiSolarAnything

“Where are we on the energy storage adoption curve?”

Photos, Selfies & Celebrations from Intersolar North America 2018

Ask SepiSolar Anything – Battery Technology Edition – Live From Intersolar!

Join us for Ask SepiSolar Anything – Live from Intersolar!

Solar Pros Asked 8 Great Solar+Storage Questions for Our First “Ask SepiSolar Anything”

Join us for our next Ask SepiSolar Anything

CA Small Business Enterprise