Sean White‘s Solar and Energy Storage Podcast

In this question we have the following questions and answers:

 

1. Net metering: Why it is different in different places whether or not you can and should feed energy back to the grid when you have an excess.

 

2. How bypass diodes work and also with half-cell PV modules.

 

3. Why solar goes so well with energy storage systems (ESS).

 

4. National Electrical Code (NEC) articles 480 Storage Batteries vs. 706 Energy Storage Systems and why you should use 706

 

For more info, go to www.solarSEAN.com

Sean White (solarSEAN.com) is interviewed on his former student Cory Vanderpool's podcast. 

 

The talk about various subjects including:

 

Solar and wind are finally cheapest forms of electricity

 

EVs bringing down the cost of lithium-ion Energy Storage Systems (ESS)

 

Battery benefits including being a load, besides being a source of power 

 

Wind power’s cubed relationship to wind speed

 

Frequency regulation is the biggest use for energy storage right now

 

Negative energy pricing in Germany

 

Ramp rates of energy storage beating all other forms of energy by a long shot, especially underground mined resources (fossil fuels and nuclear)

 

EV to grid future

 

LG Batteries in cars vs. home ESS price being the same

 

Lithium-ion graphite anodes, silicon anodes, lithium metal anode, specific energy (energy per weight), dendrites, energy density (energy per volume)

 

Sean’s $0.20 to $0.40 per kWh battery price prediction in 10-years

 

Soldering home-made lithium-ion battery packs

 

Battery cells, battery modules, battery packs definition

 

Buying houses with pre-existing solar, real estate with solar, and knowing how to value them, solar valuation, solar asset value, solar offset value (offsetting electricity)

 

You can see Cory’s podcast home page at: https://sparkcertified.mykajabi.com/podcasts/solar-broadcast

 

Cory’s webpage:

www.SparkPros.com

 

Twitter

www.twitter.com/acoryvanderpool

 

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-vanderpool-85bb764a/

 

Michael Ginsburg’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Photovoltaic-Power-Optimization-Verification-ebook/dp/B07YQ9D7V2

 

Sean White's classes, books and everything else: www.solarSEAN.com

In this podcast we answer 2 questions:

1) Grounding is important and can be confusing with many different theories of how and why it should be done. Here we are going to talk about the basics, including the neutral (grounded conductor), the equipment grounding conductor (EGC) and the grounding electrode conductor (GEC). We will even make a mention of SWER (single wire earth return), which means using 1 wire for transmission and using the Earth as a conductor! Here is a link about that last part, so you don’t think I am making it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return

2) Batteries were once always included with PV systems and not as the grid has more intermittent renewables, batteries are making a comeback. We will discuss energy storage, off grid PV systems in Haines Alaska’s Mud Bay and microhydro for generating electricity.

3) Monocrystalline PV has taken over the number 1 spot from polycrystalline silicon solar cells in the last few years. We will discuss the differences of how these solar cells are made and how they look.

To find out more about solar and storage, go to www.solarSEAN.com

This podcast answers 3 questions on solar and storage.

1) EV to home can mean EV to grid and EV to backup. Ford has announced that their F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup will be released next year and will have the ability to backup a house. What does that mean? Will it be able to work with a PV system and keep the battery charged or will it only work as long as the battery is charged? Will it be able to send electricity to the grid?

2) Now that there are a tremendous amount of lithium-ion batteries being manufactured, what will happen at the end of their lives? Fortunately, lithium-ion battery materials are not very toxic, unlike lead-acid batteries. Just like with solar modules, if we accidentally throw the materials in the trash, it will not be a toxicity issue, just a waste issue. Lithium-ion batteries will get recycled and the most important aspect of this is the need for cobalt, since much of the cobalt comes from the Congo, where child labor is often used.

3) The average efficiency of PV being installed these days hovers somewhere under 20% and the super high efficiency that people buy for some rich people's homes can be 22% efficient. It is interesting that for space applications, you can see up to 40% efficient PV, which has to be super-efficient! Even the richest guy in the world (Elon Musk) thinks gallium arsenide PV is expensive for space and has mentioned that he is using some crystalline silicon PV on some satellites.

To find out more about gallium arsenide space solar cells, go to https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html and make sure you have a few million bitcoin on your credit card (joke).

To find out more about solar and storage, go to www.solarSEAN.com

This is an audio version of the workshop that Sean White taught at the ASES conference at the University of Colorado Boulder on August 6, 2021. To see a video version, go to www.solarSEAN.com for a link to Sean's YouTube channel or find some of this material in Sean's classes at www.HeatSpring.com/sean

 

You can also find most of the material form Sean's Intensive PV workshop at the ASES conference, which was covered in the last podcast listed on HeatSpring for 2 hours of free NABCEP CE credit at https://www.heatspring.com/courses/introduction-to-solar-pv-design-installation-and-code?aff_id=t3nlgw 

 

Here is the description of the workshop straight from the ASES.org website:

This workshop will be jam-packed with NEC insight and interpretation. Sean White teaches PV courses around the world and has authored many technical PV books. Solar Photovoltaic Basics 2nd Ed., Energy Storage Basics, Solar PV Engineering and Installation 2nd Ed., Solar PV Technical Sales and PV and the NEC 2nd Ed. Sean will fill you up with as much information as possible in the time given, while entertaining you. This year Sean will focus more on Energy Storage Systems (ESS) than he has in the past.

 

Did you know that the NEC allows us to backfeed your house with electric vehicles (EVs) and that it is just the EV manufacturers holding us back? Be ready for when EV manufacturers let us do what they already should have.

 

This course will count for NABCEP continuing education requirements in every category and will also count for prerequisites for NABCEP Certification.

 

This course will also include a $200 discount for Sean’s advanced online PV classes.

 

A printable color digital certificate included with course, along with .pdf files of the presentation.

 

Your instructor is based in the US and teaches classes internationally. His resume can be seen here www.maximumpowerpointtraining.com

 

Be sure to check out next year's ASES conference in Albuquerque New Mexico on June 20-24 ases.org/conference see you there!

go to www.solarSEAN.com

This podcast is a recording of a workshop Sean taught at the ASES Solar 2021 Conference at the University of Colorado Boulder on August 6, 2021.

 

This Solar PV Intensive Workshop was fast paced and covered a lot of information. This workshop was in a way covering the same material Sean covers in his Solar PV Boot Camps, which are often 40 hours long in a quick 1.5 hours. There are slides and if you want to see the video version, you will be able to see it at Sean's Youtube channel. Here is the Youtube link for this video.

 

Topics covered include, Energy Storage Systems (ESS), PV Markets

 

To find out more about solar and energy storage or classes with Sean White and Bill Brooks, go to www.solarSEAN.com

Hawaii has more solar PV per capita than any other state. Since PV is the least expensive energy in the world now, this concentration of PV will soon hit other states and Hawaii is paving the way with new policies that will be able to deal with this abundance of noontime energy. California, which has a lot more people and by for more solar than any other state is also dealing with this abundance.

 

In this podcast, we will discuss one of Hawaii’s policies put in place to deal with the possibility of producing more energy than the grid needs, but still letting people export to the grid. The policy we are covering is called Customer Grid Supply Plus (CGS+). Get ready for these new types of policies to come to you.

 

We will also discuss energy storage, and a student review of one of our free classes for 2 hours of NABCEP credit that I do with Bill Brooks where we sadly get accused of being "too funny".

 

To find out more and to take some of my not-boring classes, go to www.solarSEAN.com

In this podcast, Sean answers 3 questions and then we finish it off with some wise words from Bill Brooks where Bill and Sean discus the purpose of NFPA 855 Standard For The Installation Of Stationary Energy Storage Systems. 

To find out more about solar and energy storage or classes with Sean White and Bill Brooks, go to www.solarSEAN.com

In this podcast, Sean answers questions about net-metering sustainability, with examples from the most mature PV markets in the US, Hawaii and California and how energy storage solves problems when intermittent renewables are on the grid. 

 

There were some changes in the 2017 NEC, where the requirement to have a temperature adder with conduit in sunlight over a roof were removed, making wire sizing simpler, although wire sizing is arguably the most difficult part of designing a PV system.

 

Our last topic here has to do with the optimal way to face your PV, given the restrictions of having an east-west facing rooftop. As Jim Morrisoin says, "West is the best!"

 

To find out more, go to solarSEAN.com

In this podcast we once again cover questions from you and those like you by popular demand. We will get into the different terminology and how it changed in different versions of the NEC, when we talk about ungrounded, grounded and functionally grounded inverters. We talk about the correct terminology for combining batteries in parallel and differentiate between community solar and community choice aggregation among other things.

 

To find out more about renewable energy, go to solarSEAN.com