Thursday, August 11th, 2011
The cookies were baking in our solar oven, the music was blaring on our solar radio, and our solar car mascot, “the Turtle,” was laboring down the sidewalk. All was good for SolarTown’s open house, which we celebrated yesterday here in our new home in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC. We may not have had throngs, but we had a good turnout of friends and neighbors who came to show their support for SolarTown and to share their latest solar war story. The weather was perfect to hold the open house on our patio, but since we held it late in the afternoon we were not sure whether we would be able to “fire up the grill.” In this case, the “fire” had to come from the sun as the solar oven does not store the sun’s rays. It was late in the afternoon, and the first challenge was the large cumulus clouds looming over us. With the sun oven, it is pretty clear, if the sun doesn’t get through, the oven won’t heat up.
Tags: columbia heights, solar car, Solar Oven, solar panels, solar radio, sun oven
Posted in Solar Energy Products, SolarTown Current Affairs | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Enphase Energy just released its next generation microinverter. Let’s face it: Enphase is synonymous with microinverters. By continuing to release new solar inverters, Enphase is staying ahead of the competition—which is not insignificant. We have heard of at least twenty, that’s right, twenty other firms that are trying to home in on the microinverter market. They are of course correct, because the first-to-market advantage does not always last. At least today, Enphase seems to be doing everything right, generating over $60 million in sales last year and on target to ship their one millionth product in the coming months. Yesterday the announcement came that Enphase is seeking to raise a cool $100 million in an initial public offering. Money is flowing easily into the microinverter market as Enecsys, probably Enphase’s closest competitor, also raised $41 million in a series B round of financing. Enecsys likes to call its products micro inverters and sometimes micro-inverters. What’s there not to love about a product that converts the electrifying DC to AC right at the panel level (actually plenty according to the big central solar inverter companies, but that is another story). Enphase just released its new generation Enphase M215 microinverter, which we are already carrying at SolarTown. This latest microinverter product from Enphase will change how solar panels will be installed in your home solar system or commercial solar energy system.
Tags: Enphase Energy, Enphase M215, Enphase microinverter, Enphase warranty, solar inverters, solar panel, solar panels for home
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Home Panels | Comments Off
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
We have had some false starts but the cherry blossoms finally bloomed in the Nation’s Capital and spring has finally arrived, and so has the surge of interest in and orders for solar powered lights. Most of our customers who are interested in solar lights are newbies to solar energy, and indeed there is no better wait to start down the road to solar energy with some solar lights. You don’t need a solar farm to get into the solar business. You can start with some simple, inexpensive solar lights. And springtime has brought the customers to SolarTown who want to see solar technology in action.
Tags: Gama Sonic Solar Lights, Maxsa solar lights, Smart Solar lights, solar energy, solar lamp post, solar lamp posts, solar lighting, solar lights, solar powered lighting, solar powered lights
Posted in Solar Energy Products | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
The blog that we posted on the warranty claim with Enphase received some attention—from Enphase. The director of customer support read the SolarTown blog on the warranty claim on the Enphase Envoy and wrote to us directly: “It sounds like someone may still have an unresolved issue, which I would personally like the opportunity to escalate to resolution… I would be happy to intervene and fix the situation.” And true to his word, Enphase replaced the Envoy that wasn’t working. Issue resolved and our hours on the phone were behind us. Enphase will need to continue to support its customer relations folks if it wants to hold onto its leadership role in the inverter market. Enphase is also reportedly considering offering a longer warranty than the current 15 years that it currently offers. That would assure consumers that the microinverters will work reliably for almost as long as the 20-25 years that the solar modules are expected to generate electricity. The warranty is only as good as the company that is standing behind its products. We hope that the intervention in the warranty claim that we had better represents the company’s customer service approach than what we experienced initially. That could keep Enphase in the leadership position for some time to come.
Tags: central inverters, Enphase Warranty Claim, Microinverter, solar array
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Home Panels | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 21st, 2011
We should say right up front that we generally have a bias in favor of microinverters. Most of the solar energy systems that we sell at SolarTown are sold with microinverters rather than central inverters. We have explained in our learning article explaining inverters and micro inverters why generally we favor microinverters in the residential solar market. Our recommendation, however, may be tempered by our recent experience dealing with customer care of the leading microinverter manufacturer, Enphase. Microinverters have quickly garnered acceptance especially for solar installations on homes. Although we expect some major competition starting this year, Enphase is undoubtedly the leader of this fast expanding market, and as of this writing, is the only microinverter we carry at SolarTown. We may have not been as sensitive to the reliability issue of microinverters, or particularly the Enphase microinverter, until one of the Enphase parts failed on one of our customer’s installations. The part that failed was the Enphase Envoy, which is, according to Enphase, the “communications gateway” for the solar energy system. It basically monitors the performance of the system.
Tags: central inverters, Enphase, Enphase warranty, home solar panels, Microinverters, reliability issues, Solar Energy Systems, solar homes, solar modules
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Home Panels | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
The warming weather will make for an excellent time to take advantage of the additional solar projects coming live in 2011. In addition to your standard solar energy systems, we now see solar installed in different devices and hardware bringing the technology to a wider audience. You ask, “What other devices?” Well we can begin with the Toyota Prius’ solar powered ventilation system, which is the most widely accepted motor vehicle incorporating solar on the roof (silicon cells), helps cool and maintain the car and look but more importantly maximizing energy efficiency.
Tags: parking meters, Solar Energy Products, Solar Energy Systems, solar projects, solar spring
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Friday, January 28th, 2011
I was glad to hear that solar made it into Obama’s speech earlier this week, but solar is finding itself lumped in with some strange bedfellows, nuclear and now even natural gas. How did that happen? Sometimes the story of a product or technology is all in the marketing. The success or failure of a product may depend less on the ultimate merits or utility of a product but more on the consumer’s perceptions of that product. In other words, it depends on what consumers think they see, not what they actually see. To get solar into the mainstream, then, we need to come up with a new branding effort. “New and improved solar” is not going to get us very far, but we need you to weigh in helping the solar industry to adopt a new nomenclature that will attract the masses. Think cheap solar, or eco-solar, or simply superb solar. The one that I like the best is sexy solar as in I just put some sexy solar panels on my roof this week.
Tags: chilean sea bass, clean coal, clean energy, energy policy, photovoltaic panels, renewable energy, Solar Energy Products, Solar Energy Systems, solar industry, solar photovoltaic panels
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Policy & Incentives | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Are you looking for that special holiday gift for your family and friends? We debated about which solar gifts were worthy of our top ten solar gift ideas honors. It wasn’t easy to narrow it down to 10 because there are just a lot of new solar products that have come on the market. Ties and perfume are so 20th century. You need an eco gift this year. There are solar energy gifts for many practical uses and solar gifts for every budget. And please don’t call them solar gadgets; these are practical solar applications to bring civilization closer without affecting the climate. These solar products can be used in the home or in your garden–and even if you need a solar charger for a backpacking trip.
Tags: Eco Friendly Gifts, eco gifts, gift ideas, Solar Electronics, Solar Energy Gifts, Solar Gadgets, solar gift ideas, Solar Gift Suggestions, solar gifts, Solar Oven, Solar Power Gifts, Solar Products, Solar Products for Garden, Solar Products for Home
Posted in Solar Energy Products | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
This past weekend, homeowners opened their solar homes to those wanting to catch a glimpse of the future of home energy. We hope that you were able to attend one of the 648 tours throughout the country. I took my kids to visit some of the solar homes in Washington, DC and Virginia and enjoyed the display of solar electric, solar thermal and even passive solar. My kids especially enjoyed the solar cookies from the solar ovens. The solar home tour showed just how far solar applications have come and how new technology is reshaping the world around us. We only hope that next year we will see more innovations and more homes on the solar home tours, and we hope that we’ll get an invite to the White House to see Obama’s new solar energy system.
Tags: home solar panels, passive solar home, Solar Energy Systems, solar home tour, Solar Home Tours, solar ovens, solar panels, solar thermal, Solar Water Heater
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Events, Solar Home Panels, Solar Policy & Incentives | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 1st, 2010
You live in your desert home and just spent $30,000 for a solar energy system—when all of a sudden a dust storm comes up and layers your panels with a layer of dust, reducing the electricity output by 40%. You are not very happy and are wondering why you wasted your money. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that there is a drought and water is being rationed. Now you are really peeved. Do you simply wait for the next rain—which could be next year. Not to fear, help is on the way. Researchers at Boston University have innovated a solution based on electrodynamic screen (EDS) technology. Using this technology, you can get rid of 95% of the dust within two minutes.
Tags: Cleaning Solar Panels, dust layer, home solar panels, New Solar Products, Solar Energy System
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