Top trends to watch in 2013: solar soft cost reduction

Top trends to watch in 2013: solar soft cost reduction

Over the next few weeks, we’ll share our views of the top three trends to watch for in the U.S. solar market (focusing on the PV market; apologies to the solar thermal folks reading). This week, we look at the first trend: soft cost reduction. It’s no secret that...
Valuing solar: a matter of perspective

Valuing solar: a matter of perspective

2012 has seen a backlash against distributed generation net metering, particularly solar distributed generation. Most utilities in most states currently have some form of net metering, which is a simple mechanism for assigning a value to distributed generation that is...
NREL turns to SolarAnywhere for NSRDB

NREL turns to SolarAnywhere for NSRDB

Yesterday, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced the newest release of the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). The database is widely used by solar system designers, building architects and engineers, renewable energy analysts and others to...
3 steps to reducing solar customer acquisition costs

3 steps to reducing solar customer acquisition costs

In anticipation of the soon-to-be released NREL report that benchmarks solar soft costs in 2010, plenty of media attention is being given to soft-cost reduction strategies. According to NREL’s data, customer acquisition and system design make up 11 percent of the cost...
20-million solar calculations served

20-million solar calculations served

This week, the engine that powers Clean Power Estimator® calculated its 20-millionth solar estimation (at least since we started counting). This marks a milestone for Clean Power Research and is a bellwether of industry growth. Since it launched in 1998, the rate of...