I’ll be giving a short Zoom presentation Does Rooftop Solar Still Make Sense? for the East Bay Green Home Tour on May 20, 2023. In December 2022, the California Public Utilities Commission finalized how households with solar will be compensated for energy exported to the grid, now known as “Net Billing” or “Net Energy Metering 3.0” (NEM3). The decision took effect on April 15, 2023 and so the presentation title question is now pertinent for everyone considering solar.

Because Tour presentation time is limited, we’ll ask that all questions be put into the Zoom chat. I’ll do my best to answer all chat questions directly after the presentation, and the chat Q&A will be sent to everyone who registered and wants it. For any follow-ups anytime, feel free to email me at Doug at LightsOnSolar dot com and I’ll answer privately.

For more information about the Tour, go to www.eastbaygreenhome.com/. The Tour’s Eventbrite page is here.

Update: the slides are here.

I spoke at the Hillside Club’s monthly Fireside Meeting on Feb 7, 2022. At that time, it was unclear how and when the California Public Utilities Commission would change how PG&E compensates households with solar. The presentation focused on understanding the CPUC’s “Proposed Decision” which had been published a few months earlier, and how individuals could try to influence the decision to move the CPUC to better support continued growth of rooftop solar in California. Slides are here.

The Ecology Center and the Sierra Club Bay Chapter kindly co-sponsored a two-part Solar Simplified series held at the Ecology Center’s recently remodeled and very nice site.

The number of necessary topics to cover the basics of solar is growing, thanks to recent developments from PG&E, from Alameda County’s vote in November 2016 to create a “Community Choice Energy” program, and from the growing interest in the interconnection between solar, electric cars, and battery storage. So we decided to split the workshop into two 90-minute sessions.

Part 1 on June 10 covered these topics:

• Components of a PV system
• Solar Financing
• Solar Economics
• Environmental Benefits of Solar
• How to Find a Great Installer
• Solar in California and the World

Slides for Part 1 are here. I handed out a printout showing many of the details and calculations given in the slides. The printout is here.

Part 2 on June 24 covered these topics:

• Solar Panel and Inverter Choices
• Electric Vehicles
• Batteries
• Home Appliance Electrification
• Community Choice Energy
• Net Metering
• Policies (that promote or stymie solar)
• The Future of Solar

Slides for Part 2 are here.

The Sierra Club’s East Bay Dinner is held on the 4th Thursday of each month (except June, July and August) at the Berkeley Yacht Club on the Marina for years. Good food and good speakers! Guy McPherson, the speaker in April 2017, paints a grim picture of where humanity is headed (namely, we’ll all be dead in 10 years). I tried to suggest a brighter future is possible, helped of course by massive amounts of solar power. Slides are here.

The City of Richmond put on a Homeowner Energy Efficiency Workshop. Of course when anyone completes energy efficiency improvements, they should definitely add solar! A car crashed into a power-pole just before the event and the power was out for almost the entire evening. So the slides I didn’t show are here.

Realtors are getting interested in solar! I was a panel speaker for the OBAR Climate Action Committee, sponsored also by the PG&E Pacific Energy Center. Slides are here.

I led the Solar Simplified workshop in Albany. Thanks to the Albany Climate Reduction Action Team! Slides are here.

I led the Solar Simplified workshop in El Cerrito. Many thanks to the El Cerrito Environmental Quality Committee for their support. Slides are here.

SunShares (BayAreaSunShares.org) selects solar installation vendors who then offer a group-buy discount to members of a municipality or corporation or other entity. I gave an intro to solar finance for the Berkeley program. Slides are here.

There was also a nice discount for buying a Nissan Leaf.

Check back in 2017 when the SunShares program will probably come around again.

I spoke on climate change, solar and communication as described in this post last week. Good audience engagement as this IEEE Chapter is known for. Thank you to everyone who attended!

Slides are here.

There are a few backup slides at the end showing some poll data on beliefs about climate change and solar in the USA.