This Week in Solar

Exact Solar
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A weekly look at what's new in solar, brought to you by Exact Solar. Clean energy news, policy updates, and stories that matter. exactsolar.substack.com

  1. 4d ago

    Several Companies Want to Deploy In-Home Data Centers

    What’s newSeveral companies want to install tiny AI data centers in people’s homes. It’s not as crazy an idea as you might think… AI needs more computing power, but Americans are beginning to loathe data centers and oppose them almost anywhere anyone suggests putting them. Homes already have power, internet, and space. Some homes already have solar panels, batteries, and smart electric panels, making them perfect candidates to host small computing devices. This is a concept called “distributed computing.” So, just like our episode two weeks ago (where we talked about how several solar and other technology companies are considering pulling from solar and battery systems when data centers need power), these companies are considering pulling compute from home-hosted computing devices when people need queries answered by A.I. A quick message before the rest of the story: This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-year-old solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And we have a special bonus for This Week In Solar Listeners. For a limited time (July 1st-August 31st, 2026), we’ll pay you $1000 if you refer a friend to us and they go solar. (We only install in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so please do not refer anyone outside those states). All you have to do is: Click the “Refer a Friend and Earn $1000” button below. Fill in your information (we need your address to mail you a check if your friend goes solar). Select Aaron Nichols as the sales representative. Add your friend’s name, address, and contact information. Get a $1000 check mailed to you if your friend goes solar with us! Refer a Friend and Earn $1000 Here are a few examples of distributed computing plans:Sunrun is testing AI computer systems in homes that already have Sunrun solar panels and batteries. Homeowners would be paid to host them, and Sunrun says they plan to start rolling them out while they test how well they work. NVIDIA and Span are testing GPU cabinets that attach to the outside of homes. These connect to smart electric panels and backup batteries. Span’s XFRA system would place liquid-cooled NVIDIA computer systems next to homes. Span is starting with pilot projects before trying to grow. Akash’s Homenode is a different version of this concept that helps people who already own powerful gaming or work computers sell extra computing power. Why it mattersAI has two big problems right now: not enough computing power, and not enough electricity to run it. A home with solar panels and a battery can help provide both the space and the energy for a small amount of AI computing. This could be much faster than building new data centers, which can take years to plan, approve, connect to the grid, and build (a process made much slower by the fact that Americans tend not to want them anywhere near their towns). There is also a strong financial reason for people to opt into these programs: Computing power is currently worth much more than electricity, sometimes 10-20 times more. The technology isn’t available for the mass market yet, but in the next few years, we could start seeing this become more common for homeowners.

    Several Companies Want to Deploy In-Home Data Centers

  2. 6d ago

    How Off-Grid Hippies Kick-Started The Solar Industry: Jeff Spies and Jason Vetterli

    Aaron talks with Jeff Spies and Jason Vetterli, seasoned solar industry veterans and filmmakers who are about to release the documentary Solar Roots. They’ve spent nearly 10 years filming and editing this documentary to capture the wild, off-grid stories of the pioneers who built the foundation of the modern clean energy boom. You can check out the documentary and watch party here. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyExpect to learn:How the modern solar industry was built by back-to-the-land, herb-growin’ hippies in Northern California.Why these barefoot farmers could afford solar at $50/Watt (it’s hilarious). When and where the Solar Roots watch party will be (and if you’re invited). Quotes from the episode:“The hippies started the PV industry. I really was curious to understand, was that true? And that was the basic premise of the film... at the end of the film, we take this story and I think we answered the question.” — Jeff Spies “The vast majority of energy on this planet 200 years from now will be generated from the sun. It’s just it’s just that simple... Sand is an incredibly, incredibly abundant resource. We’re not running out of that.” — Jason Vetterli This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-year-old solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And starting today, we have a special bonus for This Week In Solar Listeners. For a limited time (July 1st-August 31st, 2026), we’ll pay you $1000 if you refer a friend to us and they go solar. (We only install in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so please do not refer anyone outside those states). All you have to do is: Click the “Refer a Friend and Earn $1000” button below. Fill in your information (we need your address to mail you a check if your friend goes solar). Select Aaron Nichols as the sales representative. Add your friend’s name, address, and contact information. Get a $1000 check mailed to you if your friend goes solar with us! Refer a Friend and Earn $1000

  3. Jul 3

    New Jersey Unanimously Legalizes Plug-In (Balcony) Solar

    What’s New: Earlier this week, New Jersey lawmakers unanimously passed the Garden State Plug-In Solar Act, a bill that would legalize plug-in (balcony) solar across the state. If signed by Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the law will let residents use systems up to 1,200 watts (roughly 3 modern solar panels) that plug into a standard outlet and lower electric bills, without needing a local permit or utility approval first. The bill also protects access for renters, condo owners, and people in apartments by blocking landlords, HOAs, and condo boards from banning plug-in or balcony solar outright, though they can still set reasonable rules for size and placement. Once she signs it, the new rules will go into effect in January of 2027. This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-year-old solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And starting today, we have a special bonus for This Week In Solar Listeners. For a limited time (July 1st-August 31st, 2026), we’ll pay you $1000 if you refer a friend to us and they go solar. (We only install in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so please do not refer anyone outside those states). All you have to do is: Click the “Refer a Friend and Earn $1000” button below. Fill in your information (we need your address to mail you a check if your friend goes solar). Select Aaron Nichols as the sales representative. Add your friend’s name, address, and contact information. Get a $1000 check mailed to you if your friend goes solar with us! Refer a Friend and Earn $1000

  4. Jul 1

    Building Hurricane-Proof Off-Grid Solar In a Box: Meghan Wood

    This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-year-old solar installer for Southeast PA and New Jersey. We’d love to pay you $1000 if you refer a friend to us and they go solar (We only install in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so please do not refer anyone outside those states). All you have to do is: Click the “Earn $1000” button below.Fill in your information (we need your address to mail you a check if your friend goes solar).Select Aaron Nichols as the sales representative.Add your friend’s name and address.Get a $1000 check mailed to you if your friend goes solar with us! Refer a Friend and Earn $1000 Aaron Nichols talks with Meghan Wood, CEO and co-founder of Raya Power, the first plug-and-play solar and battery appliance. Listen to this episode on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyConnect with Meghan: Find her on LinkedIn, visit her website at rayapower.com, or follow the Raya Power Instagram account for behind-the-scenes content. Expect to LearnWhy treating solar like a piece of IKEA furniture or a standard household fridge removes the need for homeownership, roof repairs, and long construction timelines (which have kept thousands of people out of the solar market).How Raya’s system connects directly to essential household loads (like a fridge or Wi-Fi) without backfeeding the grid, completely sidestepping the need for interconnection agreements and electrical permits.Why Puerto Rico is the perfect primary market and testing ground for Raya (think frequent outages, high electricity rates, and abundant sunshine).Quotes from the Episode“When we thought of how can we actually get this [solar power] to more people, we thought ‘this needs to be an appliance.’ It needs to be something that’s as simple as getting a fridge or a table at IKEA or your wifi. Something as a renter you would get normally, something you could replace without too many hurdles.” — Meghan Wood “80 years from now, it’d be really cool if it was like, ‘of course my home is self-powered and that’s like the norm,’ not a contentious fighting point.” — Meghan Wood

  5. Jun 26

    Tesla, Renew Home, and Sunrun Plan to Use Home Solar and Batteries to Power Data Centers

    What’s new Across the country, data centers are gobbling up power, and Americans are paying the bill for rising costs. Everyone involved in building these things needs energy now, but energy infrastructure takes years to build. Tesla, Sunrun, and Renew Home say they can help meet the ever-growing power needs of A.I. data centers by linking together devices that are already sitting in people’s homes: * Rooftop solar * Home batteries * Smart thermostats * Other controllable loads They’re planning to coordinate these into “virtual power plants” that can respond in minutes to increased energy needs. By the way, if you look up “Virtual Power Plant,” it seems like no one wants you to understand them. This is the Department of Energy’s blurb: “Virtual power plants, generally considered a connected aggregation of distributed energy resource (DER) technologies, offer deeper integration of renewables and demand flexibility, which in turn offers more Americans cleaner and more affordable power.” It’s wild how no one wants to state things simply. The best definition I found comes from the Solar Energy Industries Association: “A Virtual Power Plant (VPP), also known as a Distributed Power Plant, is a network of decentralized energy sources — like solar panels, home batteries, and smart devices — that work together to generate, store, and manage electricity. It is a system of thousands of smaller devices that are aggregated, and they work together and function much like a traditional power plant, supplying electricity when it’s needed most and helping ease demand on the grid.” The idea is simple: * These companies ask customers who already have solar and batteries (or want to sign up for them at a subsidized rate) to opt in to a program * They then use software to coordinate all of these systems, charging batteries and pulling power from them as needed. * When the grid is most stressed, they slightly adjust things like thermostats and other smart home devices across millions of homes, then they use that extra power for data centers The three companies claim they can free up enough capacity during peak demand to cover the equivalent needs of about 17 large data centers. They cited real programs already running in places like California and parts of the Northeast as proof they can do this, and they say this approach can be deployed in months, especially in data-center hot spots like northern Virginia, where they say hundreds of megawatts could be available quickly. If you’ve learned something from This Week In Solar and you’d like to learn more, drop your email below, and we’ll keep sending you free solar news! Why it matters A.I. is pushing data center growth so fast that the parts of the power system that are slow and expensive to build (new power plants, big solar farms, grid batteries, and new transmission lines) can’t keep up. This is a simple supply/demand problem. Everyone wants power, so power is getting expensive. The worst strain on the grid happens during peak hours like hot summer evenings or cold snaps, when everyone turns on their AC or heat at the same time. If home batteries and smart devices can reliably reduce demand or supply power during those peaks, it could delay or reduce the need for new “peaker” plants and major grid upgrades. Homeowners who participate in these programs can earn payments, bill credits, or even subsidies towards battery installations (all depending on what their installer or utility actually offers). Personally, if I were thinking about participating in one of these programs, I’d make sure I knew exactly what I was signing up for and that I was going to be fairly compensated before I signed up. Especially if I was agreeing to let a large corporation adjust my thermostat from afar. This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, 20-year-old solar installer. Energy costs are skyrocketing, and no one seems to have a good plan to fix it. Between natural disasters, capacity auctions, utility rate hikes, and data centers gobbling up power, energy just keeps costing more. You have no control over how much someone charges for power for your home or business, but you can choose to opt out of the cycle by going solar. If you live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, Exact Solar would love to work with you to see if solar is a good fit for your property. Whether you have cash to pay for solar up front or you want solar for zero dollars down, we have an option that will fit your needs. Just click the button below, submit your info, and we’ll show you the numbers! Sources: A Solution to A.I.’s Growing Power Demand: Homes Tesla, Sunrun, Renew Home team up on massive 16GW virtual power plant Sunrun, Tesla say they have 16 GW of existing home battery capacity to send to utilities Virtual Power Plant (VPP): Best Practices & Principles This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

    Tesla, Renew Home, and Sunrun Plan to Use Home Solar and Batteries to Power Data Centers

  6. Jun 24

    The Future is Filled With Solar and Sheep: Rebekah Pierce

    Energy costs are skyrocketing, and no one seems to have a good plan to fix it. Between natural disasters, capacity auctions, utility rate hikes, and data centers gobbling up power, energy just keeps costing more. You have no control over how much someone charges for power for your home or business, but you can choose to opt out of the cycle by going solar. If you live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, Exact Solar would love to work with you to see if solar is a good fit for your property. Whether you have cash to pay for solar up front or you want solar for zero dollars down, we have an option that will fit your needs. Just click the button below, submit your info, and we’ll show you the numbers! In today’s episode, Aaron talks with Rebekah Pierce, a freelance writer and first-generation farmer. Rebekah is a former educator who’s now on the front lines of the movement to combine solar energy and agriculture (agrivoltaics). She deploys flocks of sheep to control vegetation under solar arrays alongside her husband and their five-year-old son. She’s also just an awesome human to interview. Listen to this episode here, or on: * YouTube * Apple Podcasts * Spotify Connect with Rebekah on LinkedIn here. If you’ve learned something from This Week In Solar and you’d like to learn more, drop your email below, and we’ll keep sending you free solar news! Expect to learn: * Why sheep are better for controlling vegetation under solar panels than diesel mowers. * How farmers are growing everything from kale to sun-loving tomatoes under solar arrays. * Rebekah’s advice on shifting the solar narrative from “climate change” to “food security” to win over hesitant local communities. Quotes from the episode: “Food security is really a non-partisan thing. We can increase our food production, we can help America’s farmers, and we can help our soil—all while increasing our renewable energy production.” — Rebekah Pierce “It’s kind of cool because we think of solar farms as futuristic, but they are allowing farmers to return to a style of farming that people have done for centuries.” — Rebekah Pierce Transcript: Aaron Nichols: Rebecca, you’re living what I’m sure many people would consider a dream as a freelance writer who lives on a farm. I think that there’s a lot of probably novels or movies with characters just like you. And I’m curious if you could just give us a general idea of what your day-to-day life [is like]. Rebekah Pierce: Sure, so I guess I’ll start with the caveat that even a nightmare is a dream. No, and I say that very, very tongue in cheek. But yeah, so my husband and I started our farm pretty much right when we purchased our property, which was about 11 years ago... At first it was just your typical hobby farm. We both didn’t want to continue teaching, and we wanted to expand our farm to more of a commercial enterprise... I left teaching around the time of the pandemic, started pursuing my freelance writing full time. It was also right around that time that we turned our farm into an LLC and started exploring this idea of solar grazing and agrivoltaics. Day to day, the writing business is my full-time business. So most days I’m in front of a computer interviewing, researching, writing. But I also help on the farm during our high times. We start lambing in just a few short weeks here, so it’s pretty much all hands on deck. It’s just us and our five-year-old son who very much thinks he’s helpful. Aaron Nichols: So for everyone who’s listening, welcome back to This Week in Solar. My guest today is Rebecca Pierce, who’s a freelance writer who has covered a lot of sustainability and clean energy topics. Rebecca, will you introduce yourself and just talk about your experience specifically with solar? Rebekah Pierce: Absolutely. So again, Rebecca Pierce, freelance writer in upstate New York. We’ve only been solar grazing since about 2022. For folks who don’t know, solar grazing is just the practice of grazing livestock, typically sheep, under solar panels for the purpose of maintaining the vegetation. For us, our first initial reason for getting into it was a form of farm viability. My husband and I are both first generation farmers. We got into this with not a whole heck of a lot to our names. We got our first solar contract in 2022. We now graze seven sites across four counties in upstate New York. Aaron Nichols: So just to clarify—do you bring livestock to other people’s solar panels and graze under them, or you do it on your own farm? Rebekah Pierce: We graze as a third-party service provider. Often it’s other farmers who are leasing their land to the solar company. The solar company, who is in charge of the maintenance, pays us to do the vegetation management with our sheep. Aaron Nichols: And have you found solar companies to be pretty supportive? Rebekah Pierce: Back in 2021-2022, there was a lot of us having to pitch that sheep are cheaper than traditional mowing. But since then, adoption has increased due to advocacy from groups like the American Solar Grazing Association. Companies are realizing it’s not as risky as they thought. There’s a reduced risk of damage to panels because sheep don’t kick rocks like a mower might. You don’t have to worry about fire risk. Also, you have a shepherd on-site every other day who acts as the “eyes and ears” for the O&M team to spot things going wrong. Aaron Nichols: I think another benefit would be just you don’t need to use as many pesticides or herbicides. Rebekah Pierce: Yeah, you’re using gas or diesel powered equipment to mow around these sites, so [grazing] is cleaner. We don’t use herbicides or pesticides at all. Through rotational grazing, you can actually improve the soil quality of the site. It’s kind of cool because we think of solar farms as futuristic, but they allow farmers to return to a style of farming done for centuries—moving animals daily and feeding them grass rather than grain. Aaron Nichols: For anyone who doesn’t know, what are the major benefits of agrivoltaics or dual-use farming? Rebekah Pierce: Agrivoltaics is just any practice of farming under or around solar panels. In my book, I call it “Agri-Energy” to pull out some of the complexity. Economic viability is huge because farming is a very risky business. Beyond that, shade is incredibly beneficial, not only for animals but also for crops. There’s a narrative that you can only grow shade-tolerant crops like broccoli or kale, but we’re seeing that you can pair solar quite nicely even with crops like tomatoes that prefer more sunlight. There’s even a trendy term now called “Cattle-voltaics” for raising cattle on solar farms. Aaron Nichols: I want to pull the thread of being an educator. I came from an education background as well. I’m interested in how you think being an educator has helped or hurt you in this work. Rebekah Pierce: As a writer and a marketer, I have to understand my audience. I think the solar industry has a little bit of a PR problem. The conversation has always been about climate and the environment. But energy has become politicized. Food security is a non-partisan thing. By leaning into agrivoltaics, we can speak to people who are hesitant about solar by showing it increases food production and helps America’s farmers. Aaron Nichols: I close this podcast with the same question. My grandma turned 80 last summer. Everything from the invention of solar PV in 1954 to it becoming the cheapest power source happened within her lifetime. What do you think energy looks like 80 years from now? Rebekah Pierce: I would like to see a world where we don’t look at energy production, food production, and community resilience as separate systems, but rather things that are enmeshed. I want systems that are circular, where power and food stay within communities. We need to get back to producing our power and food as locally as possible in a way that benefits everybody at the most direct level. Aaron Nichols: That’s exactly the future I want to bring about. If you want to be found online, where can people find you? Rebekah Pierce: I’m on LinkedIn—Rebecca Pierce. My website is jrpiercefamilyfarm.com. I’m also on Instagram and Facebook, but LinkedIn is my number one. Aaron Nichols: For everyone who’s listening, that’s been this week in solar. Rebecca, thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

    The Future is Filled With Solar and Sheep: Rebekah Pierce

  7. Jun 19

    Here's How You Can Help Legalize Plug-In (Balcony) Solar In Your State

    Plug-in solar is one of the best defenses average Americans have against skyrocketing electricity bills. Sadly, not every state legislature agrees. Some state representatives are stuck battling utility monopolies in committee, just so that their constituents can legally use the sunlight that hits their homes. If you’re excited about potentially lowering your electric bill without a permit and live in one of the states below, here’s what you can do to help move this battle forward. Listen to this episode on: * YouTube * Apple Podcasts * Spotify This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, 20-year-old solar installer. Energy costs are skyrocketing, and no one seems to have a good plan to fix it. Between natural disasters, capacity auctions, utility rate hikes, and data centers gobbling up power, energy just keeps costing more. You have no control over how much someone charges for power for your home or business, but you can choose to opt out of the cycle by going solar. If you live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, Exact Solar would love to work with you to see if solar is a good fit for your property. Whether you have cash to pay for solar up front or you want solar for zero dollars down, we have an option that will fit your needs. Just click “Show Me How Much I Can Save With Solar” below, submit your info, and we’ll show you the numbers! Here’s What to Say if You Live in These States (Legislation Died or Failed to Advance) If you live in: Rhode Island, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Wyoming, Oregon, Missouri, Indiana, Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia, and Idaho. Contact: Your state representatives and senators, as well as local environmental and renter advocacy groups. Tell them: Say that you expect plug-in solar to be reintroduced in the next legislative session as a standalone bill, and that you are building a coalition to support it. Remind your reps that UL 3700 certification requires automatic anti-islanding, and that because of that safety regulation, plug-in solar is already being safely deployed across several states. Then point out that traditional rooftop solar is inaccessible to Americans who don’t own their homes, and that plug-in solar solves that. To summarize, tell them that these systems are safe, and that killing these bills directly harms renters and low-income households who need immediate utility bill relief (and gives them a solution that doesn’t require government subsidies). (If you’re wondering what that bit about UL 3700 and anti-islanding means, it’s just a guarantee that if the grid goes down, the system shuts off in milliseconds. So it means that plug-in solar poses zero risk to utility workers when people buy and install proper kits. Germany has over 4 million of these installations with zero lineworker incidents). Here’s What to Say if You Live in These States (Legislation is Pending) If you live in: * Awaiting Signature: New York (the SUNNY Act) and Vermont. * Active in Chambers: California (SB 868), Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. Contact: * For New York and Vermont: Contact the Governor’s office and ask for a signature. * For the others: Contact your state representatives and senators, as well as local environmental and renter advocacy groups. Tell them: Remind them that while traditional rooftop solar can cost upwards of $20,000 for cash or a loan, plug-in kits cost between $400 and $2,000 and plug directly into a standard 120V or 240V outlet with no need for expensive electrical panel upgrades and contractor soft costs. Make it explicitly clear that these bills do not ask for state funding or tax credits. They simply remove outdated bureaucratic red tape so consumers can spend their own money to lower their electric bills directly. Urge them to publicly support the specific plug-in solar consumer access bill currently moving through their chamber. Here’s What to Say if You Live In These States (Where It’s Already Legal) Disclaimer This Week in Solar is an informational and educational publication. The legislative tracking and advocacy strategies shared above do not constitute formal legal advice. Legislative language, utility rules, and local regulations vary widely by state and can change rapidly. Before purchasing or installing any plug-in solar hardware, always review your specific local state statutes, municipal electrical codes, and utility tariff documents to verify current compliance requirements. If you live in: Utah, Maine, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. These states have officially signed laws legalizing plug-in systems up to 1,200W (and a nation-leading 1,920W in Colorado). But these states have now shifted from passing the law to enforcing it, and there’s still a chance that an HOA or township will try to stop you from installing plug-in solar. Contact: Your state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) and the state legislators who sponsored the bill. What to tell them: First, read the law in your state and understand what your rights are. In states with renter and HOA protections (like Colorado), the law preempts homeowners’ associations and landlords from banning balcony solar. Once you know your rights and you’re ready to install, if your local utility demands a formal interconnection agreement, a pre-install inspection, or proprietary equipment for a UL 3700-certified kit, report them to the PUC (if you’re legally allowed those things under new laws in your state). Sources https://pluginsolarguide.com/ https://www.brightsaver.org/legislation-tracker/ https://pluginsolarusa.com/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pluginsolarusa/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

    Here's How You Can Help Legalize Plug-In (Balcony) Solar In Your State

  8. Jun 17

    Here's How We Connect Way More Solar to The Grid: Mike McGuire

    This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-year-old solar installer for Southeast PA and New Jersey. We’d love to pay you $500 if you refer a friend to us and they go solar (We only install in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; please do not refer anyone outside those states). All you have to do is: * Click the “Refer a Friend and Earn $500” button below. * Fill in your information (we need your address to mail you a check if your friend goes solar). * Select Aaron Nichols as the sales representative. * Add your friend’s name and address. * Get a $500 check mailed to you if your friend goes solar with us! Aaron talks with Mike McGuire, a Professional Engineer and the founder of H2DC. Mike is a 30-year engineering veteran whose firm is licensed in all 50 states. He specializes in the technical side of distribution engineering (figuring out how to integrate massive solar loads into aging utility grids that were never designed to handle two-way power flow). Listen to this episode here, or on: * YouTube * Apple Podcasts * Spotify Connect with Mike on LinkedIn here. Expect to learn: * How savvy engineers use modeling to downsize projects just enough to avoid multi-million dollar utility grid upgrade fees. * About new sophisticated off-grid systems that use automatic transfer switches (ATS) and batteries to run heavy industrial loads independently. * Why anhydrous ammonia, created from solar, air, and salt water, might be the carbon-free fuel that replaces fossil fuels in the next 80 years. Quotes from the episode: “The cost of solar has dropped dramatically, making it easier for people to develop solar. The cost of regular utility provided power has gone up and keeps going up at a pretty steep rate. You really don’t need the incentives anymore.” — Mike McGuire Transcript Aaron Nichols: Mike, when I was connecting with you and your team before the show, you mentioned that the shift from small municipal utilities to large corporate structures has driven up electricity costs and then noted that solar is becoming more viable even without incentives as utility costs rise. So how has this changed the way that solar projects are being integrated into the grid? Mike McGuire PE - H2DC: Well, that’s slightly two different things, but they’re related. The price of solar has come down dramatically. 20 years ago it was $8 a watt to buy a solar module. Now, you can buy entire ground mount solar for 75 cents a watt for extremely large facilities. You really don’t need the incentives anymore. As far as integration, the whole grid thing has evolved. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, high incentives led to a tipping point around 2010. It filled up the electric company’s circuits. Once power starts flowing in the other direction from all these little distributed generation sites, it eventually comes back to a substation where they have limits on the equipment. Massachusetts has been to hell and back on this. The utilities got crushed by the number of applications. It wasn’t fair to put the cost of repairing the grid on regular ratepayers, so they put those costs on the solar developers. In congested areas, the utility might tell you it costs $5 billion to upgrade the circuit for a 300 kW project, or you can “sneak in under the wire” if you reduce it to 125 kW. That’s the trade-off we see now. Aaron Nichols: I’m very excited to talk to you today and learn more. I am a sales and marketing storytelling minded person, but I have a lot to learn on the technical side. Welcome back to This Week in Solar. I’m your host, Aaron Nichols, and my guest today is Mike McGuire. Mike, would you quickly introduce yourself? Mike McGuire PE - H2DC: Sure, I’m an electrical engineer, and our firm is licensed across the entire US—all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. (Not Guam yet!). Part of our shop does distribution engineering. We calculate how much energy you’re going to need for a store—lighting, outlets, appliances—and size the electrical needs. With distributed generation, we look at how much you’re putting in. There’s “behind the meter” where solar takes a bite out of existing loads, or you’re a net producer dumping power back on the grid. 20 years ago, that was straight net metering. It’s primitive—like an abacus. They take a picture of your meter odometer every month and compare the two. Over the years, utilities complained about a glut of energy at certain times, which they call the duck curve. Aaron Nichols: I’ve heard of the duck curve, but please refresh my memory. Mike McGuire PE - H2DC: It’s a glut of energy available on the lines when everyone’s solar is dumping on the grid at the same time. Let’s also talk about peak demand. Every summer, when people leave work and come home, both locations have the air conditioning on. That uses a lot of power and can cause brownouts. Utilities then have to “wheel in” power from an open market at a premium—sometimes 5 to 200 times the normal price. They share that pain with big commercial users through a “speeding ticket” called a peak demand charge. Some manufacturing plants pay as much for their “speeding ticket” as they do for their regular consumption. Now we’re seeing time of use (TOU) charges for residences too, where you might pay 10 times more for electricity between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. Aaron Nichols: Where do you and your company come in to help fix this? Mike McGuire PE - H2DC: We’re the electrical engineers. We figure out how to integrate all these systems—pairing modules, combining them with inverters. We’re the cooks; the customers tell us what they want on the menu, and we figure out how to get it done and deal with the utilities. Aaron Nichols: You’ve been a PE for 30 years and in solar for 20. What are the major changes you’ve seen? Mike McGuire PE - H2DC: Grids are getting full and processes are getting complicated, but now we have energy storage. To combat that duck curve and the peak demand, you capture energy and hold onto it for a few hours. Batteries are the easiest solution. Instead of tapping the utility to charge an electric car—which is a bigger load than most A/C systems—you hit the battery. For the future, I think we’ll see more off-grid solar. I don’t mean a camp on an island; I mean solar running specific loads while the sun is out, regulated by batteries so clouds don’t “pull the rug out” from under you. If the batteries run low, you use an automatic transfer switch (ATS) to snap back to the grid. This is “solar without the utility.” In New England, solar energy per kWh is much less than utility rates, which draws people in. Aaron Nichols: Mike, if you were to guess what energy looks like 80 years from now, what do you imagine? Mike McGuire PE - H2DC: It will still be electric. How we make it will change. I don’t think fossil fuels or uranium will be enough. I believe we’ll use “modern fuels” we can’t even think of yet. One I like is anhydrous ammonia (NH3). It has no carbon, stores like propane, and its energy content is between propane and natural gas. If you have a glut of solar, air, and salt water, you can create NH3. Industry is working on making the manufacturing plants smaller and more efficient. It can also be used for fertilizer. That might be a go-to fuel in 80 years. Aaron Nichols: Thank you for coming on, Mike. For everyone listening, that’s been This Week in Solar. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

    Here's How We Connect Way More Solar to The Grid: Mike McGuire
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A weekly look at what's new in solar, brought to you by Exact Solar. Clean energy news, policy updates, and stories that matter. exactsolar.substack.com

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  • Creator
    Exact Solar
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    112
  • Rating
    Clean
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    © 2026 Exact Solar
  • Show Website
    This Week in Solar

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