When most people think of whale watching in NYC, they’re most likely envisioning an afternoon at the NY Aquarium. But actually within the last few years, whales have been seen feeding off the shores of the city, and in ever-increasing numbers.

According to the BBC, whale-watchers have spotted the species in the Atlantic within a mile of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. In 2014, 106 humpback whale sightings have been reported, up from 33 in 2013 and only 15 in 2012.

No one is exactly sure why the whales suddenly find NY harbor so attractive. Theories include a shift in basic whale behavior habits, as well as more abundant menhaden as a result of cleaner waters (menhaden are small fish which are delicious to humpbacks.)

In any event, whales frolicking in NYC waters seems like a great thing to us. And of course, we’re not the only ones:

“It is truly remarkable, within miles of the Empire State Building, to have one of the largest and most charismatic species ever to be on this planet,” said Howard Rosenbaum, director of the Ocean Giants program at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Are you a K-12 teacher currently teaching in the US or Canada? Have you always wanted to visit places like Greenland, the Galapagos Islands, or even Antarctica? National Geographic is offering professional development opportunities just for you.

The Grosvenor Teacher Fellow (GTF) program is a professional development opportunity made possible by a partnership between National Geographic Education and Lindblad Expeditions. This opportunity is designed to give current K-12 classroom teachers and informal educators from the 50 U.S. states, Canada, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico the opportunity to extend Grosvenor’s legacy of excellence in geographic education. Through the program, exemplary educators are recognized for their commitment to geographic education and are given the opportunity to be actively engaged in finding new ways to bring geographic awareness to their classrooms or informal learning environments through a field-based experience.

Applications are due on January 4, and you can learn more about the program and apply here.

After a number of years of studying mysterious bee behavior and colony collapse disorder, this past May Harvard researchers announced a connection between massive bee die-offs and neonicotinoid pesticides. Bees are responsible for pollinating as much as a third of our food supply- without them, foods like strawberries and almonds would disappear completely, along with many other favorite foods. Gardeners and fresh food advocates have been lobbying for something to be done, and now Home Depot and BJ’s Wholesale Club are responding by agreeing to limit or eliminate neonicotinoids from all nursery plants by the end of 2014, or else have suppliers add warning labels like “caution to pollinators”. The hope is that this will add a cost burden to the production of pesticide-laden plants.

As a class of chemicals used as pesticides, neonicotinoids are particularly harmful because they spread throughout the entire plant structure, unlike other pesticides which can target just the roots, stems or leaves and leave the flowers and the pollen alone. If you’re worried about the health and well-being of bees, you can sign this petition to put pressure on Lowe’s, Walmart and garden centers across the country to follow Home Depot and BJ’s lead.

Also, planting non-neonic natives can also give big boosts to native bee populations, who are not only threatened by pesticides but also by the proliferation of non-native honeybees and bumblebees.

Using a Third Party Stopwatch

Since virtually every racking manufacturer says that its product is faster to install than the old standard nuts-and-bolts assemblies of a decade ago, some companies are distinguishing themselves from the competition with third-party time studies. Solar FlexRack, based in Youngstown, OH, for example, commissioned a study by the Industrial Timestudy Institute, of Akron, to determine exactly how fast its G3L series racking, released during first quarter of this year, really is.

Spice Solar shows the advantage of avoiding a work belt full of odd parts. Credit: Charles W. Thurston

The study found that FlexRack’s posts could be installed in four minutes each, tilt brackets in 3.7 minutes each, racks and bracing at 5.5 minutes each, and mobilization between racks at 3.2 minutes. The overall summation of the study is that the FlexRack G3 can be installed for a cost of less than one cent per Watt, the results state. “The benefit from our system for labor in the field is about 30 percent,” suggests Ryan Petruska, the marketing manager for FlexRack. The company will have sold close to 1 GW of racking by the year’s end.

Similarly, Unirac, based in Albuquerque, employed DNV GL to verify that its Roof Mount system can install at a rate of 12 modules per man/hour. Such benchmarking of actual install times, either in the lab or in the field on actual projects, will become more of a standard as competition increases in the sector.

Flat Roof Designs Streamline Connections

A host of racking companies offered flat roof systems at the show; the official show guide listed 85 companies in the racking arena, including fixed and tracker manufacturers.

Quick Mount PV installers demonstrate the speed of their system. Credit: Charles W. Thurston.

Unirac, for example, focused attention on its SolarMount system, including a bonding L-foot with attaching T-bolts, an integrating bonding splice bar for connecting two panels, a bonding mid-clamp and a microinverter mount location, which cumulative save install time, said Marcelo Gomez, the director of marketing for the company.

Mounting Systems, of West Sacramento, unveiled its ballasted Lambda Light S+ and EW+ products, which are south-facing, and alternating east-and-west facing designs. Emphasizing a reduction in parts and install time, the Light line permits a tilt of either 10 degrees or 15 degrees using the same adjustable framework, noted Hannah Mirza, an associate product manager for the company. The line continues use of the Clickstone clamping system, and costs between 10 and 12 cents per watt minus ballast.

SPI Posters Touted Costs Below 10 cents per watt. Credit: Charles W. Thurston

Mounting Systems ground mounting Sigma I XS was also featured, which permits installation on an east-west slope of up to 20 degrees, Mirza noted. The U.S. subsidiary and its German parent, were purchased in February by Nordwest Industrie Group, based in Frankfurt.

Renusol Solar launched its GS ballast system, which is being tailored for landfill or other brownfield locations where soil penetration is undesirable. “Over 24 of the GS units can be installed per man hour, depending on how you lay out the components,” said Bart Leusink, the Atlanta-based CEO of the U.S. subsidiary. 

Renusol also introduced its east-west orientation flat roof design at the show, which has been popular in Europe. “We have seen more interest in west-facing installations here in the United States,” Leusink says. “We also have a frameless racking system in the works,” he said. Renusol was acquired in June by RBI Solar, based in Cincinnati, OH from the German-based Centrosolar, providing Renusol new access to RBI’s two U.S. manufacturing facilities, as well as one in China.

Among other flat roof racking systems, DPW, of Albuquerque, launched its Power Xpress flat-roof system with two main components, a chassis and a clamp. The clamp attaches to a lip on the module frame and is tightened from the side, saving install time, suggested Daniel Duffield, an engineer with the company. “The pans are shipped pre-assembled and are panel agnostic,” he said. DPW also launched a universal fixed-tilt ground mount system.

Rack 10 Solar, based in Round Hill, VA, featured its new metal-pan based flat roof system that has been reduced to three parts for installation speed: the ballast pan, a spacer bar, and grounding top clamp. “The design is patent pending,” noted Richard Pantel, president of the company. Available in angles of 5, 7.5 and 10 degrees, the system requires only 3.5 pounds of ballast per square foot. The system is available for as little as 10.5 cents per Watt, he notes.

Solar Speedrack also showed its SpeedMount 200 series, a shared rail system, which can be installed 25 to 30 percent faster than standard configurations, reckoned Shane Shamloo, the president of the Costa Mesa, CA, company. Among new features of the system is a roof penetration rate of only once per 10-foot rail, thanks to a splice, as well as the use of a new floating weight non-penetrating support foot.

Sloped Roof Innovations

Quick Mount PV featured its QRack rail-free design at SPI, including its Elevated Water Seal foot, a panel clamp for mid and end panel linkage, and a first row skirt for aesthetics. One testimonial on the Walnut Creek, CA.-based company website claims a 50 percent reduction in installation time through use of the system. It is also UL 2703 listed and has a UL 1703 System Class A Fire Rating for Type 1 modules.

Installers snap a Quick Mount Quick Rack into place. Credit: Quick Mount PV

SnapNrack unveiled two new tile roof hooks at the show, a flat hook and an S-tile hook, which help to speed installations, noted Jill Strange, a marketing associate for the San Luis Obispo, CA.-based company. The flat hook has been available since its launch in August, and the S-hook will be available in Q1 2015, she said. Company representatives also demonstrated residential roof mount system components including integrated wire management, snap-in channel nuts, and integrated bonding pins that preclude the need for drilling.

The company also recently gained UL approval of its residential roof mount system, Series 100 UL, that is UL Code 2703 compliant for bonding and fire rating. “SnapNrack is one of the very first racking manufacturers to achieve Class A Fire Rating with Type 1 Modules,” the company said. SnapNrack, owned by Sunrun since February, has over 300 MW of racking installed in the United States.

Polar Racking, of Toronto, also showed off its new PF One 2.0 version low-slope product, which sports three components plus a fastener, and can be installed on slopes of up to 30 degrees. The company claims that this product line can install up to 30 percent faster than a standard configuration.

Solar Carport Installation Speed Increases

Among solar carport builders that have streamlined design to enhance installation speed is Park ‘N Shade, based in Marana, Az. “With our new solar purlin, installers can do 500 to 700 panels per crew per day, compared with 150 to 200 panels in a standard carport design,” said Travis Bailey, the solar carport representative for the company.

The faster speed is based on a special roof purlin that is designed with a C-shaped notch on top, into which panels can be slid one after another along the length of the purlin. The panel attachment is performed from below with special L-clips, also saving time over systems requiring rooftop connections. “Our patent-pending design is panel agnostic; if it is a new dimension, they send their panel and we design the purlin,” said Bailey.

Am I mistaken or is it actually winter? Because you wouldn’t know it judging from websites of solar companies. Seems like it’s summer 365 days of the year, and that’s a serious disconnect and a lost solar marketing opportunity.

I discovered this simple yet important solar marketing oversight because I’ve just returned from Solar Canada 2014, and an installer told me he had to get on the phone to find out any information about solar panel durability during the extreme colds of Northern Ontario, eh?

I thought that extra effort was odd, so I checked some leading solar company websites, and he was right. Not only is it hard to find information about solar products or installation and OM in winter, but solar marketers also seem to completely ignore the entire season. In fact, my bet is that most solar websites in every sector act as if every season is summer, and isn’t that unreal?

Let’s be clear. For “winter,” I’m not talking about holiday messaging and images—although that’s important, too. I’m really just talking about images and information that inform customers about how well your solar panels, inverters, racking, BOS, and installations work in the snow, ice, cold, wind, driving rain, hail, etc.

• How does your solar product or install service stand up to Jack Frost?
• How should these solar products and installations be maintained during those months?
• Is there any preventative maintenance that can be done?
• If nothing needs to be done, what has your solar company done, tested, or experienced to ensure potential customers that nothing will need to be done?
• Do you have any examples/case studies of your products or installations in nipping-at-your nose conditions, especially photos or videos?

Yes, solar sales and install numbers go down during the winter months, but that doesn’t mean installers and consumers in “JHC!-it’s-cold” climates don’t want to know how your miraculous solar products and systems will perform when the weather outside is frightful for the 12-days of Christmas and other Bah-Humbug short solar days and long nights.

Solar pros may know that silicon-based solar panels are more efficient during the winter months and that you should let the snow and ice melt rather than scrape them off panels, but consumers don’t.

As for installers, they’re more concerned about your rigorous testing and case studies about product performance during below-0 temps, hail, ice, and snow. The same goes for inverters, racking, pole mounts, trackers, and other key BOS components.

I’m surprised by this industry-wide oversight because it’s not like manufacturers don’t have this information. I know and have seen testing facilities for various certifications, so the problem is that you’re hiding this information during its most relevant time of the year, and that’s a mistake from a customer service perspective, as well as from a marketing perspective.

Why? Because lots of people complain that solar products are commodities, and yet here’s a beautiful way for you to show how your panels and other solar widgets are the best choice for cold climates. And if you’re an installer, you could tell stories about how you’ve carefully selected these products through your years of cold-weather experience, and ho-h-ho, you’ve got the frost-bite to prove it!

The good news is that it’s not too late to deck your website home page with boughs of winter photographs with links to more temperature performance information. That’s the beauty of websites. Unlike the North Pole, they’re not frozen. You can change them every three months and reflect every season, not just an everlasting photo-stream of summer. Not only is that boring, it’s also unreal, even for desert climates that can have an extreme range of temperatures between 3am and 3pm.

So, a lump of coal in your solar marketing stockings for you if you don’t give customers easy access to information about your solar product’s performance during the changing seasons, especially winter. Doing so is just one merry way… to UnThink Solar.

(Oh, and speaking of winter holidays, next week will be my last post of the 2014, and per my annual solar marketing tradition, I’ll be revealing my Solar Fred Marketing Wishes for the new year. If you missed 2014’s wishes, you can still grant them here.)

Tor Valenza a.k.a. “Solar Fred” is the founder and CMO of UnThink Solar, and the author of Solar Fred’s Guide to Solar Guerrilla Marketing. For more solar marketing info, sign up for the UnThink Solar newsletter or follow @SolarFred on Twitter.

Any way you look at it, the sun continues to shine brightly on America’s solar energy industry.

Maintaining its vibrant growth, the United States installed 1,354 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaics (PV) in Q3 2014, up 41 percent over the same period last year. The numbers come from the latest edition of GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) U.S. Solar Market Insight Report, which was released today.

According to the report, Q3 was the nation’s second largest quarter ever for PV installations and brings the country’s cumulative solar PV capacity to 16.1 gigawatts (GW), with another 1.4 GW of concentrating solar power (CSP) capacity.

Solar is proving to be an important and growing source of new generating capacity for the United States. Through the first three quarters of the year, solar represents 36 percent of new capacity to come on-line, up from 29 percent in 2013 and 9.6 percent in 2012.

Without question, solar’s continued, impressive growth is due, in large part, to smart and effective public policies, such as the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), Net Energy Metering (NEM) and Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).  By any measurement, these policies are paying huge dividends for America. Every three minutes of every single day, the U.S. solar industry is flipping the switch on another completed solar project, benefitting both our economy and the environment.

The report tracks installations across three market segments: utility-scale, residential and non-residential which includes commercial, government and non-profit installations.

Historically, the U.S. utility-scale market segment has accounted for the majority of PV installations, and this past quarter continued the trend. The U.S. installed 825 MW of utility-scale projects, up from 540 MW in Q3 2013. This marks the sixth straight quarter in which utility-scale PV has accounted for more than 50 percent of the national total.

The U.S. residential market exceeded 300 MW in a quarter for the first time in history. Impressively, more than half of this total came online without any state incentive. Residential continues to be the most reliable market segment, now growing 18 out of the past 19 quarters. GTM Research forecasts it to exceed the non-residential segment in annual installations for the first time in more than a decade.

The non-residential market continues its struggles of late, due in part to incentive depletion in California and Arizona. Installations in the segment were down 3 percent over Q3 2013. However, GTM Research and SEIA do expect year-over-year growth for the non-residential market.

The report forecasts the U.S. to install 6.5 GW of PV in 2014, a 36 percent increase over the historic 2013.  Here are some of the other key findings:

• For the first time ever, more than 300 MW of residential PV came on-line in a single quarter and more than 50 percent of residential PV came online without any state incentive.
• By the end of this year, there will be more than 600,000 homes outfitted with solar.
• 36 percent of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. through the first three quarters of 2014 came from solar.
• Growth remains driven primarily by the utility solar PV market, which installed 825 MW in Q3 2014, up from 540 MW in Q3 2013.
• The report forecasts that PV installations will reach 6.5 GW in 2014, up 36 percent over 2013 and more than three times the market size of just three years ago.
• Q1 2014 was the largest quarter ever for concentrating solar power (CSP), due to the completion of the 392 MW Ivanpah project and Genesis Solar project’s second 125 MWac phase. While no CSP plants came on-line in Q3 2014, Abengoa’s Mojave Solar (250 MW) achieved commercial operation this month, making 2014 the biggest year ever for CSP.  

Yes, Santa, it’s been a good year indeed!