Posts by John Fitzgerald Weaver
25 GW of US solar, Musk the richest -then not-but then again, CO2->protein, more – Podcast #27
The Clean Power Hour – a weekly clean energy headline review and commentary podcast run by Tim Montague, and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver. First of course, here’s the podcast – Episode 27. Now, to the news! Per the EIA we’re expecting 15.4 GWac of utility scale, and 4.1 GWac of small scale solar (~25 GWdc total…
Read MoreTesla hit half a million, gigantic wind turbine, 100% wind+solar power, more! – Podcast #26
The Clean Power Hour – a weekly clean energy headline review and commentary podcast run by Tim Montague, and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver. First of course, here’s the podcast – Episode 26. Now, to the news! The new GE offshore wind turbine platform is huge – the NYTimes artiles here covered their 13 MW unit. Since…
Read MoreSolar meadows for pollinators and sheep – a picture and video walkthrough
The purpose of this post is to cover some of the on the ground work done, machines used, and one company’s techniques – Ernst Pollinator Service – when seeding a solar power plant to be local pollinator and sheep grazing friendly. CommercialSolarGuy visited a solar power plant that was near completion located in south central…
Read MoreSolar pricing decreases slowed in 2019, volume increased, modules more efficient, changes abound, 2 of 2
Second half covering Berkeley EMP Lab’s Distributed Solar 2020 Data Update, first half covered here… It is of course, very hard to parse data across hundreds of thousands of installations per year, across varying structure types, weather regions, electricity costs, incentive structures, etc – and come up with salient all encompassing generationzalitons to guide us…
Read MoreSolar pricing decreases slowed in 2019, volume increased, modules more efficient, changes abound, 1 of 2
Berkeley Lab has released Distributed Solar 2020 Data Update, which is a lighter version of their biennial Tracking the Sun report. The document has collected actual solar data – including pricing – of 1.9 million systems installed through 2019, covering 82% of all distributed PV systems installed nationally. The group’s utility scale report is covered here.…
Read MoreRecord solar cell efficiency, battery payback in a year, solar+telescopes, more! – Podcast #24
The Clean Power Hour – a weekly clean energy headline review and commentary podcast run by Tim Montague, and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver. First of course, here’s the podcast – Episode 24. Next, the show started with Cesar Barboa of Nulife Power Services talking about repowering and decommissioning solar power systems, and what to do with…
Read MoreTesla Powerhub & Megapacks – business continuity and resilience via solar power plus energy storage microgrids, #2
In the spring of 2020, a California business owner called into CommercialSolarGuy and asked for support deploying a solar photovoltaic plus energy storage (PVS) microgrid at his multiple building manufacturing campus in Southern California. His business had years ago installed a diesel generator, and extra wires between the various structures to increase the site’s general…
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