Sean White‘s Solar and Energy Storage Podcast

Brian Hayden discusses how HeatSpring started as an offshoot of two HS co-founders trying to get educated in renewable energy with the idea of becoming integrators. They were unsuccessful at finding the education they wanted, so they started HeatSpring, with the idea that they would get the best instructors in the world who are often authors. They would let the instructors use their own material and split the revenue rather than getting cheap instructors to make curriculum, teach classes and taking most of the profits for their organizations, google add-words and high pressure sales people, which is what they found in the industry. Sean learns in this podcast how HeatSpring started out with live trainings in Boston and evolved to go at your own pace 100% online education. Find out more about the “most excellent” free and not free HeatSpring classes at solarsean.com

Sean White gets interviewed as he was getting ready to interview Brian Hayden. They were having a conversation which fortunately was recorded where Brian Hayden, a podcaster himself seemed to be interviewing the interviewer. This part 1 of a multiple part series of conversations with Brian Hayden. Brian has a podcast of his own, which goes well with his Entrepreneurship course at the world renowned University of Michigan Center for Entrepreneurship. Brian's podcast is called Finding Your Venture and can be found at FindingYourVenture.com. To find out more about Sean, to sign up for his courses or to hire him, go to solarsean.com. Stay safe!

In this podcast, we go off on the EV manufacturers for not having a good enough excuse to let us connect our cars up for bidirectional purposes. Rather than blaming it on the warranty only being for 100,000 miles or 10 years, why not add 33,000kWh to the mix and then if you overused your battery powering your house, that could be another way for your battery warranty to expire. Bill picked 33MWh and if it is good enough for Bill, it is good enough for the EV industry. Let's start a movement and agree to buy the first EV that offers this technology. We know they can all easily do it and it is not an engineering problem. Perhaps the battery industry is more interested in selling batteries for your car and your home separately. EV to grid is also known as V2G. This podcast is part of a free class titled "Solar Building Codes, Fire Codes, EVs, Rapid Shutdown and Energy Storage Systems", which you can find the link to by going to www.solarsean.com

In this episode, we talk about 2020 NEC Article 625 Electric Vehicle Power Transfer System. It is ok with the NEC that we can use our cars to feed the grid and power our homes, so what is the hold up with the EV manufacturers? We will cover more of this answer in our next episode, but this time we will get into the details, and focus on 625.42 Rating, which will allow us to 4000A of EV chargers (and bidirectional EV Power Transfer Systems) on a 1000A feeder as long as we have the load management to make everything safe. 625.42 was the inspiration for 2020 NEC 705.13 Power Control Systems! You can also learn more about these topics in our online Heatspring classes, some of them free. Find your way there and to many good places at the address of solarsean.com!

The 2018 International Residential Code (IRC) now allows for 18 inches from the ridge instead of 3 feet. Bill was involved in the process of making these rules and explains how the 2018 IRC works. This is very important for those of you involved in rooftop solar markets in the US. In some states you can go all the way up to the ridge, other states you can go up to 18 inches from the ridge and yet in others it is 3 feet. With the price of solar PV so low, people are wanting to put as much PV as they can on their roofs, including on the north side. This podcast contains material from a recently released Heatspring free online class entitled: Solar Building Codes, Fire Codes, EVs, Rapid Shutdown and Energy Storage Systems. This free online course counts for 2 hours of NABCEP continuing education credits and prerequisites. You can find out more by going to www.solarsean.com.

Bill Brooks has been in the solar industry for 32 years. He trains inspectors, consults with solar farm owners, is a licensed professional engineer, is on code making panel 4 and is in charge of writing much of the NEC as it pertains to solar energy. Brooks teaches and writes books with Sean White. This interview is part of the 40-hour Advanced PV and NABCEP Certification exam prep and CEU online class on Heatspring. They were both coronavirus free at the time of this interview.

NEC Article 710 Stand-Alone Systems is short and this reading will get you thinking about living off the grid or will get you ready for when the apocalypse comes and your prepper tendencies pay off!

Funny interview! Sean White interviews the worlds first solar installer Bob. Bob has been installing solar for longer than you can imagine! Bob sometimes works for the aliens on the History Channel.

2020 NEC article 706 Energy Storage Systems (ESS) is the latest in implementing storage technology into the grid and off grid. Lithium battery technology is decreasing in price as the price decreases and as intermittent renewables take over. This podcast is an energetic reading of article 706 and a way to catch up on the code as you drive, exercise or sleep through osmosis. NEC Article 706 is complimented by Article 690 PV Systems, Article 705 Interconnections and Article 480 batteries. Learn!

This podcast is a reading from NEC Article 690 PV systems [Skip to the next podcast if the NEC is not your cup of tea]. Every 3 years the NEC comes out and I choose to pod-post it for you and my Heatspring Online PV classes. If you are not a technical PV person, you will find listening to this podcast exceptional for insomnia and becoming familiar with solar lingo. When I first read the NEC, I had no idea what it meant, but it did become familiar and was a step towards enlightenment.

This is part 2 of a 2 part series.

Paul Fenn of Local Power came up with the idea for the Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) law at the University of Chicago. The CCA law has been passed in over 1500 municipalities. Utilities spent millions trying to stop CCAs. Bloomberg Business Week said Paul is the "utility industry’s enemy number 1”. David does not kill Goliath here. His CCA law does not do away with utilities and still uses them for lines, poles and billing. This is part 1 of a 2 part series.

Sean White gets interviewed about his book writing on the get published podcast.

Rapid Shutdown of PV Systems on Buildings came into the US Codes in the 2014 version of the NEC and has been changing ever since. This provision was put in place so that firefighters will feel safe to save buildings with PV on them.

The solar industry has been growing at such a fast pace, that if it kept growing this fast, earth would be completely covered with PV and look like the Death Star in less than a century. This is driven by cheap PV and a need for cleaner and cheaper energy.

The National Electrical Code (NEC) is the most thoroughly detailed Code for installing PV systems in the world. Join us for a brief overview.