Sean White‘s Solar and Energy Storage Podcast

Herve Billiet is an electro-mechanical engineer who co-designed the first Belgian solar car way back when he was 21 years old. Soon after, he was invited by MIT in Boston to advance its sustainable transportation initiatives.   He went on to design his first residential solar PV system in 2009 using the 2008 National Electrical Code. Herve is from Europe but he knows the National Electrical Code h...

At the COP 27 conference there was a lot of talk about other issues besides climate change, which I thought was interesting. Here were my notes:   I find it interesting at COP27 that there are a lot of other issues that are not directly about solving the CO2 crisis. Human rights, sexual rights, indigenous rights and economic injustice are all very important and all can be indirectly linked to clim...

In this podcast Bill gets down to the basics talking about PV IV curves, Short Circuit Current (Isc), Maximum Power Current (Imp), Open Circuit Voltage (Voc), Maximum Power Voltage (Vmp), Maximum Power Point (MPP), Light Emitting Diodes (LED) in reverse is a solar cell or aka photo diode and if you put power into a solar cell it makes invisible light (infrared).   To learn more go to www.solarSEAN...

We take something that can be boring and run it through the Sean White "boring-to-exciting converter" and out comes something sounding fun!   In this podcast we go over different ways of disconnecting solar circuits.   To learn more, go to  www.solarSEAN.com  or  www. HeatSpring.com/sean   Sean White teaches in-person and on-demand online solar and storage courses everywhere. He is currently writi...

This podcast was recorded at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt on November 16 2022.    COP stands for something boring, Conference of the Parties, which means that countries and other organizations are the parties. Sometimes I look at what our countries are doing and it is like we are having a big fossil fuel party! It is literally powering parties like Burning Man with flames...

2021 IRC requirements for ESS units to be less than 20kWh, 3-foot separation between ESS units, exceptions due to large-scale fire testing (UL 9540A), distance of ESS from garage window vs. window of living space, SolSmart.org PV, Future SolSmart ESS material Bill is developing, 2024 IRC Proposals, lithium-ion not good on the outside of a house in cold places and NFPA 855 Standard for ESS.

This video is based on the 2018 IFC and there are many places that are using the 2018 IFC, in fact I just taught an ESS  class to inspectors based on the 2015 IFC. You will have to check your own state to see which version is adopted. At the time I am writing this, the 2018 IFC is the most widely used version, although the 2021 IFC has already been released. Additionally, most of the language betw...

The 2023 NEC has been released and it is time to see how voltage, current and rapid shutdown look in the future!   2023 690 Part 2 includes:   690.7 Voltage 690.8 Current 690.9 OCPD 690.11 DC Arc Fault Protection 690.12 Rapid Shutdown   Reading the NEC can be heavy stuff, so if you do not get it the first time around, try listening to it backwards synced with Dark Side of the Moon. Then you will g...

Rapid Shutdown has traditionally meant putting module level power electronics in the array for PV systems on buildings. There has always been this part of the NEC 690.12(B)(2)(1) that gave you an option to comply with rapid shutdown inside the array with a listed hazard control system. Surprisingly, we can now go back to having something to what rapid shutdown used to be in the 2014 NEC, which we...

Every time the NEC comes out, I do a reading of my favorite NEC articles. I like to think of it as sort of a poetry reading, since I will try to make it as least dry (wet) as possible. This time I am going to give some commentary, so it is up to you to figure out what is Code and what is me interpreting and making Code fun by understanding the tone of my voice.   Here is where you can get free acc...

This is a re-posting of a podcast where Sean White is interviewed by Tim Montegue on the  Clean Power Hour Podcast .   If you have not already, be sure to save the Clean Power Hour podcast to your favorites. Tim is very active and has all kinds of experts on his podcast, including  Jigar Shaw  of the Department of Energy (Episode 83). I was honored to be interviewed on the Clean Power Hour and lis...

Some of the areas of the NEC that we cover in this podcast are: NEC Article 702 Optional Standby Systems, Load Control, Disconnecting Means, UL 1741 for Power Control Systems, 706.15 Location Control for 1 and 2-family Dwellings Quotes: Bill Brooks (soon to be famous quotes). “Tesla, Enphase, SolarEdge, are all getting listed as energy management systems.” “You will damage most generators if you r...

Some of the areas of the NEC that we cover in this podcast are: Ground Fault Protection, Ground Fault Detection and interruption (GFDI) term clarified (not to be confused with GFCI), 690.45 Equipment Grounding Conductors (EGC) includes DC and AC not having to increase size of EGC when upsizing current carrying conductor for voltage drop (now also applies to AC PV and modifies NEC 250.122), 250.122...

Bill Brooks is instrumental in the process of coming up with material for the NEC for renewable energy systems, especially for solar, energy storage and interconnections. Although the 2023 NEC has not been finalized or published, this is as good of a preview as you can get for knowing what the future will bring. Many manufacturers, engineers, CEOs and other decisionmakers can make better informed...

Keith Cronin :  Solar MBA  instructor on  HeatSpring !   Keith sold his Hawaii solar company Island Energy Solutions to  Jigar Shaw  of  SunEdison  in 2007 after knowing Jigar since 2002.    Keith has been teaching his Solar MBA class for just over a decade with co-instructor and attorney  Chris Lord . They have taught many students, including oil and gas refugees.    Keith Cronin does consulting...

Welcome to 2022, the year of the Terawatt! That's right, this year will cross the trillion watt mark!   2022 will be remembered as the year that humanity reached the magic number of 1 trillion watts, aka 1 terawatt or 1TW of solar installed since the beginning of time. We do not have to take into consideration the amount of solar taken out of service, since that is so low, it probably will be repl...

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 Batteri...

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   Fre...

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 us...

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 a...

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 confe...

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 y...

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, 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 sizi...