Commercial Solar Guy

@commercialsolarguy.com

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Solar (tech/finance/project) news. Solar Installations: commercialsolarguy.com Writer: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/people-companies/john-fitzgerald-weaver/ Professional: linkedin.com/in/johnfitzgeraldweaver Born 336.74 Cambridge, MA, USA, Earth, Today

Solar panels and a carport very much so wrecked and folded up by a tornado

Roof with a bunch of solar ballast in the form of white spots - each of which are 96 lbs

Solar ballast on a rooftop, with a two bars - the jig that helps space laying out pieces - in the foreground

Graph showing batteries charging and discharging across the day along wth this text:

On one side: the battery fleet. Britain's batteries were magnificent that evening and it's important to say so — a staggered relay of discharges (a second shift of fresh cells arriving at 19:00 sharp, exactly as the first faded), 3.3 GW at peak, two-thirds of all balancing acceptances in the crunch, delivered with near-perfect precision, at prices — around £513/MWh in the crunch — some 30–40% cheaper than the gas bought alongside them.

The fleet's whole day is worth a chart of its own, because no other machine on the grid can draw this shape: discharging into the morning peak, swallowing 1.4 GW of the midday solar surplus, then swinging 4.7 GW within a couple of hours to meet the evening — a fleet of ten thousand containers behaving like one perfectly obedient power station.

Solar panels in foreground, optimizer on ballast brick in background - on ground in between is a white square that is a patch to fix a hole on a rubber white roof

https://en.cntepower.com/energy-storage-container-price-bess-cost-structure-tco-procurement-2026/

Email header including info of author and source

July 20, 2026
Sustainability
Philip Shen, Managing Director, Sr. Research Analyst
(949) 720-7198
pshen@roth.com
Oscar Chim, Associate, Research
(949) 720-5781
ochim2@roth.com

Graphic shadowing various areas of a sodium
Ion battery

From article: ‘Sodium-ion batteries also use different raw materials in their layered-oxide cathodes (see ‘How sodium-ion batteries work’). Like their LFP cousins, sodium-ion batteries don’t usually contain the large amounts of toxic heavy metals that NMC cells do. For its first mass-produced batteries, CATL has adopted a layered oxide called Prussian white, which is made from sodium, nitrogen, iron and carbon and is similar to the pigment Prussian blue.’

This chart:

‘Although LFP cells can store only around two-thirds of the energy that advanced NMC ones can, they can still give electric vehicles a range that is respectable — especially for cars, vans and motorcycles that are used mostly in cities. And they have taken over the global market for large-scale, stationary batteries that are used to store excess renewable energy for electrical grids. (see ‘Shifting energy balance’). Here, the lower energy per unit weight doesn’t matter as much.’

Chart showing delays in buildings various types of large scale things bridges power plants etc - with solar being at the best (bottom) spot on the list

Blue sky and ballast on a roof just rolling out some solar panels

SpaceX stock performance since it went IPO

Optimizer map showing the location of every solar panel on a solar rooftop

Looking at the prior post, you see a field electrician and an egineer discuss a solution - and now an image showing the solution implemented, with the engineer responding 'ooo that is nice!' showing their adminration for the solid work - all before 10 AM

Screenshot from slack of an electrician asking a question about grounding and the electrical engineer responding saying its cool

Image of an electrify America car charger screen charging at 235 kw

Table showing available solar panels in New York/NewJersey

Hole in the ground filled with conduit and water - which turns to ice in the cold New England winters.

China is the largest market for solar by far, followed by an eclectic list of countries with India, the US and Germany next in line in terms of gigawatts expected to be installed this year. Pakistan rounds out the top five economies for solar. The next set of five includes Brazil, Japan and Saudi Arabia.

Concerns around growth in solar usually focus on China’s dominance of equipment manufacturing. Quite a few countries have launched incentive programs to encourage domestic assembly of modules, the manufacture of cells and wafers, or the production of polysilicon.

1. Solar’s steady growth
Solar has charted a steady growth path over the last two decades, with more capacity added every year compared to the one before. The pace of global annual installations jumped from less than 100 gigawatts in 2016 to over 650 gigawatts last year. However, BNEF sees 640 gigawatts of solar installations this year, the first year-on-year dip. Growth in installations resumes again from 2027.

Solar Surpasses All Other Generation in 2032
Share of global electricity generation

Holes in the ground being filled with cocrete and rebar to be used as foundations for solar powered carports. Four workers waiting for the concrete pour to start so they can spread it in the hole and fill the space properly.

Song lyrics:

Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good lookin'
So hush, little baby, don't you cry
One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing
Yes you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky
But 'til that morning, there's nothin' can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin' by
Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good lookin'
So hush, little baby, baby don't you cry
Don't you cry

by Ella Fitzgerald

Sketches about where we will place key solar hardware amongst a bunch of other gear already existing on a building

operations and matienance task list, not a wasp nest being installed

Solar panels covering a commercial rooftop in Fall River Massachusetts

Solar panels on the left, with a new wire tray on the ground that is empty minus a single string of copper going back to the inverters seen in the distnace in the cneter of the image.

Image of several foot wide BYD battery cell that is 2,710 Ah - the largest I know of. This is for utility scale batteries, with the model name being the Haohan.

https://www.bydenergy.com/en/downloads?sourceType=product-information&productId=Haohan

Bike tire on a bike with a padlock hanging

Google satellite image of a collection of rooftops with a lot of solar power installed

solar trough with must and rust spots from loose metals pieces

Captain Planet and the Planetsers

chart showing electricity generation per year in kilowatt hours

Chart source - https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/americans-willing-pay-carbon-tax/

Solar modules on a roof under a perfect blue sky

Underside of a solar panel and side of a ballast brick showing wires hanging from panels

Shiny metal rack holding white SolarEdge inverters and their synergy combined units.

A fuse in someone's hand with a blow out