News

What the Future of Cars Means for Solar Panels

April 27, 2017 by dev-greenleaf

We are rapidly approaching a revolutionary time for the automobile. While it didn’t start with the Prius, a hybrid car the masses adopted, it will certainly be seen as an important step for the automobile in its journey. Cars nowadays have become less reliant on gasoline as a means for movement and more on electricity. Take the blossoming popularity of the Tesla Model S for example. This is a car that is not only sleek and attractive but also completely electric, able to go up to 315 miles on a single charge. The Tesla Model S is, however, an expensive car by most people’s standards starting at $68,000. While this is unobtainable for many of us, Tesla is planning on releasing their new Model 3 soon, a cheaper all-electric car similar to the Model S. Tesla has received over 325,000 pre-orders for the Model 3 already.

Mass-Produced Solar Panel Efficiency Record Broken

March 29, 2017 by dev-greenleaf

Big news for solar fans, researchers in Japan have broken the efficiency record for crystalline silicon-based solar panel cells. Crystalline silicon-based solar panels are the type of solar panels one would find installed on a house, and they type we use here at GreenLeaf Solar. The panels that broke the efficiency record reached an efficiency of 26.6%. This was reached by innovative design by the researchers involving The efficiency percentage means the amount of energy from the sun that is converted to electricity. Crystalline silicon-based solar panel cells have a theoretical limit of 29% according to pv-tech.org. While other types of solar panels might be more efficient; such as Multijunction Cells that reach up to 48%, crystalline silicon-based solar panel cells are ideal for houses for a number of reasons.

Impact of Long Islands Winter on Solar Panels

February 10, 2017 by dev-greenleaf

Many homeowners on Long Island that are interested in going solar worry about the impacts of winter weather on their solar system; however, there are many important factors to understand when assessing how well a solar system will function in the winter. It is common knowledge that the daily hours of solar production are less during the winter months. There is a host of other important factors to consider, such as reduced electric consumption and improved system efficiency. The winter has a very small impact on your solar systems ability to produce the power needed for your home on Long Island. Below the factors impacting the production of a solar system during winter months will be explored.

The Future of Commercial Solar on Long Island

January 27, 2017 by dev-greenleaf

While it is hardly news that solar energy is booming on Long Island, the vast majority of current installations are residential solar installations. In spite of the huge amount of commercial roof space on Long Island, only a very small portion of commercial have gone solar, but that is all starting to change. Historically one of the largest obstacles to commercial solar on Long Island has been the challenges associated with funding a large commercial solar project. While there are many specialized financing options for residential solar until now there have been no solar specific loan options for commercial solar available on Long Island. In addition to the restrictions related to commercial solar financing on Long Island until a few months ago, commercial buildings were not allowed to sell the excess power they produced beyond their own consumption, for this reason, it previously did not make sense for large commercial buildings to max out their roof space with solar panels.

The Future of Net Metering

January 16, 2017 by dev-greenleaf

Community net metering represents a major shift in solar policy in New York State. Essentially community net-metering allows large buildings to install solar panels on their roof and sell the energy produced at a discounted rate to homeowners. Community net metering represents the first time in history that individuals have an option of where to buy their electricity from, instead of being forced to buy power from the monopolized power utility. Before further delving into community net metering, it is worth understanding how traditional net metering works.

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