This Week in Solar

Aaron talks with Yann Vermeil Schremmer, founder of All In Solar, who helps innovative solar startups grow. He’s currently working on BalkonSonne. App, a German startup that helps installers sell balcony solar, and Sunbooster, an Austrian company that turns ordinary garden fences into solar power plants. If you want to know why balcony solar took over Germany — and how a tiny plug-in system can be...

What’s new Right now, four utility companies in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will pay homeowners to install home batteries, either up front or over time once they have a battery installed. If you live in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, it’s time to talk to Exact Solar about installing battery backup for your home so your utility company can pay you for storing power and running your home on it in times...

Aaron talks with Yann Brandt, the founder and managing editor of SolarWakeup, co-host of the Boots on the Ground podcast (with former SEIA CEO Abby Hopper), and former President and CEO of FTC Solar. Yann has spent 20 years building, scaling, and turning around solar companies at every level of the industry. If you want to know what pro-solar people should actually ask their lawmakers for after El...

Disclaimer: I (Aaron Nichols) took a risk by opening my electrical panel to install the APMeter, and neither Exact Solar nor I would ever recommend that any homeowner take the same risk by opening their electrical panel and attempting to install anything themselves. Our official recommendation is to wait until plug-in solar is legal in your area before purchasing an inverter, and to always hire tr...

The midterm elections are just a few short days away, and Americans are more divided than ever, except on one key issue: data centers. 75% of Americans across party lines are opposed to them. Turns out solar energy can help. Aaron talks with Mike Casey (one of his personal clean energy heroes), founder and president of Tigercomm, a marketing and PR firm that has spent more than 20 years helping cl...

What’s new On Monday, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, introduced the Socket Full of Sunshine Act . Even if this doesn’t pass, it 100% wins the prestigious “Aaron Nichols’s best-named congressional bill of 2026” award. Quick refresher: plug-in solar (also called balcony solar) means that someone can buy and use a solar inverter that plugs straight into a regular wall outlet with...

Aaron talks with Peter Buck, Director of Education at Penn State Sustainability and co-director of Penn State’s Local Climate Action Program. Peter’s spent the last decade as a township supervisor, school board member, and climate advisor, getting solar onto public buildings across central Pennsylvania. If you want to know how to get solar onto the buildings in your own town (and why the best way...

What’s new Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy declared a power grid emergency for the entire PJM region, which includes every home and business in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The order runs from Tuesday, October 13th, through Friday, October 16th. If you want to know why and what you can do, today's episode is for you.

Aaron talks with Tony DeFazio, founder and principal of Sustainable PR, a New York–based public relations firm that helps renewable energy developers and environmental advocates earn media coverage and win over the communities where they want to build. If you want to know why so many local solar and battery projects get blocked, and what it actually takes to earn a community’s trust and a reporter...

Over the last three years, New Jersey has seen the biggest electricity rate increases of any state. Over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen the third-biggest rate increase. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify This is according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report from July 2026. This federal agency tracks what Americans pay for power acr...

Aaron talks with Eli Andrews, founder and CEO of civicIQ, a nonprofit that uses AI to help solar, wind, and battery projects earn support from rural communities. Eli also teaches sustainability and strategic leadership at Penn State. If you want to know what makes people actually change their minds about solar (and why arguing with them usually isn’t it), this is the episode for you. Listen to thi...

What’s new This weekend, October 2-4, the American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Tour is hosting its National Solar Tour. This means that homeowners with solar are opening their homes to the public. This is one of our favorite times of the year at Exact Solar, and we are very proud to be a sponsor. If you’re a homeowner interested in going solar but you’re still on the fence, this is a gre...

Aaron talks with Aimee Tuck, founder and principal of Corbae Creative, a branding, design, and marketing agency that works with solar, energy storage, and grid modernization companies. She’s been doing this for 25 years (since Aaron was 8 years old), and she recently wrote the book on it, which you can find here: Powerful Branding Screenshot from Corbae Creative’s Website If you’ve ever had someon...

What’s new Exact Solar is an Amicus member , which means we’re in a purchasing co-op made up of the 90+ highest-reviewed, locally owned, most trustworthy solar installers from around the country. This week, I got to spend two days with America’s most highly reviewed, locally owned solar installers at the Amicus Sales and Marketing Conference. It was exactly the opposite of what the media tells us...

One of the coolest things about the solar industry is that thousands of people involved are motivated by the belief that the energy transition just needs to happen . So they often volunteer their time, energy, and attention to deploy even more solar outside of the work they’re paid for. In today’s episode, Aaron interviews Joy Baxter, president of Clean Energy Co-op. This community-owned, voluntee...

What’s new The Garden State Balcony Solar Act (S2368/A4836) passed both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature in late June. New Jersey’s new governor, Mikie Sherrill, signed it into law on September 1. It was written with a six-month delay to allow the Board of Public Utilities time to get ready. This means that as of March 1, 2027, any New Jersey resident will be legally allowed to buy a plug-in...

Aaron talks with John Sheldon, founder of GreatSun Consulting, who has spent almost twenty years inside solar companies as: An installer A salesperson An operator (Now) a consultant who solar companies call when things start to fall apart. If you want to know why growing solar companies start to fail (and what it actually takes to fix the mess before it costs you customers) this is the episode for...

What’s new The U.S. switched on more than 11 gigawatts of residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar between April and June. 43% of all new electrical capacity added was utility-scale solar, and total operating US solar now totals 288 gigawatts. That’s not just some big number. There are millions of individual stories tied into that total. 288 GW of total solar means that millions of people...

As energy costs have risen in the US, so has the popularity of plug-in solar. We’ve been tracking American plug-in solar legislation for more than six months now, and excitement is building across the country. People are very excited by the idea that they could just buy solar and plug it in without approval, to lower their utility bills without permission from their utility companies. Critics of p...

Exact Solar is excited to announce that on June 10th, the IRS redrew its map of “energy communities,” and most of Exact Solar’s service area in Southeast Pennsylvania and New Jersey landed inside the lines. Commercial buildings in those areas can now claim an extra 10% federal tax credit on a solar project, on top of the 30% they already qualified for. This IRS designation will offer commercial bu...

Imagine if you opened your electric bill, and it said: “We’ve decided we’re going to pay you this month instead.” Curt Sawyer, an Exact Solar customer in Bucks County, lives in that reality. Curt and his wife Candy went house hunting nine years ago with a very unusual requirement: they wanted a roof that was already worn out, so they could tear it off and build a new roof specifically designed to...

What’s new Earlier this week, Solar Power World published an article called “Sodium Ion Batteries are Ready for World Domination.” (linked at the bottom of today’s episode). At Exact Solar, we love learning about what’s coming, because we always want to have great offerings that serve our customers. So we went looking to learn more about this technology and what needs to happen before it’s widely...

Aaron talks with Devi Ramkissoon, the first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Devi’s a great storyteller and was a joy to interview. She came to her current role after running economic growth programs at USAID and a stint as the executive director of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia. If you want to know what sustainability work actually...

It’s a great week for New Jersey farmers and anyone who buys their power from PECO (the utility that covers Southeast PA and the city of Philadelphia). After listening to this episode, anyone intrigued about putting solar or batteries on their property in New Jersey or Pennsylvania should contact Exact Solar. Book my free estimate with Exact Solar’s team Last week, the New Jersey Board of Public U...

Realtors often think of solar as a four-letter word. So how do we change that? Today’s episode was recorded live in front of an audience and features two guests: John Nichols is a realtor with Lokation Real Estate who has had some frustrating experiences with solar energy systems during home transactions. Kate Collardson has two decades in the solar industry under her belt, and now runs a solar in...