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What’s newThis weekend, October 2-4, the American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Tour is hosting its National Solar Tour. This means that homeowners with solar are opening their homes to the public. This is one of our favorite times of the year at Exact Solar, and we are very proud to be a sponsor. If you’re a homeowner interested in going solar but you’re still on the fence, this is a great chance to get all of your questions answered by real people with solar on their roofs (not by companies who are trying to sell solar). One of Exact Solar’s customers, Curt Sawyer, is hosting a tour at his home in Doylestown, in person, on Saturday, October 3rd, from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. You can RSVP and find his address on the ASES Solar Tour website here: See Curt Sawyer’s Home Solar Energy System In Person Curt has a very large home solar energy system (21 kW), because his home is fully electrified and he and his wife drive EVs. His system is large enough that his local electric company pays him, not the other way around. If you’re planning to see Curt’s system in person and you want to learn more about his system first, you can find the interview we did with him and his virtual video solar tour at these links: Curt (Curtis) Sawyer — Doylestown, PA How it Feels to Own Your Energy With Solar: Curtis Sawyer If you’re not in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and you’d rather participate virtually, you can find a tour near you at map.nationalsolartour.org If you can’t make it to any of these this weekend because you have plans, no worries! Exact Solar has put together video solar tour interviews with several of our customers over the last four years. You can find them all individually listed below, or go to the Exact Solar Solar Tours page to see them all in one place.

Aaron talks with Aimee Tuck, founder and principal of Corbae Creative, a branding, design, and marketing agency that works with solar, energy storage, and grid modernization companies. She’s been doing this for 25 years (since Aaron was 8 years old), and she recently wrote the book on it, which you can find here: Powerful Branding Screenshot from Corbae Creative’s Website If you’ve ever had someone tell you that your company’s website is too complex, or just blankly stare at you when you try to explain what your company does, this episode’s for you. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyConnect with Aimee on LinkedIn here. Read more about Aimee at Corbae Creative. This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-one-year-old solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Aimee and I spent a lot of this episode talking about how a company’s brand is made up of the feelings that people have upon encountering that company’s public presence, reviews, and testimonials. Companies that make people feel good about them at scale by doing great work over a long period of time have great brands. Exact Solar’s been installing solar in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for twenty-one years. Most of our work comes from people who had a great experience and told somebody else about us. If you’re interested in saving money on your electric bill as electricity prices climb to record highs, Exact Solar would love to help. Show Me How Much I Can Save With Solar Expect to learn:What does and doesn’t qualify as brand or brandingOne thing that damages a company faster than bad advertising ever couldWhat to put in an ad if you want anyone to remember itQuote from the episode:“Most people think about energy about eight minutes a year. That’s just about enough time to pay their electric bill.” — Aimee Tuck

What’s newExact Solar is an Amicus member, which means we’re in a purchasing co-op made up of the 90+ highest-reviewed, locally owned, most trustworthy solar installers from around the country. This week, I got to spend two days with America’s most highly reviewed, locally owned solar installers at the Amicus Sales and Marketing Conference. It was exactly the opposite of what the media tells us the solar industry is. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyNobody in that room was talking about sending out door-to-door salespeople to lock customers into predatory contracts. They were talking about how to make sure that they’ll still be there in 20 years, so they can answer the phone to service their warranties when customers call decades from now. If you’re shopping for solar, here’s why that matters: The last couple of years have been brutal. SunPower filed for bankruptcy in 2024. That same year, Titan Solar shut its doors overnight and liquidated. Sunnova went under in 2025, followed by PosiGen, which served homeowners right here in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This spring, Freedom Forever filed for bankruptcy. Those companies were among the largest solar companies in the country. Each one of those bankruptcies left thousands of homeowners with no one to call if something goes wrong with their solar energy system. That’s why if you’re thinking about solar, you should go solar with a locally owned, trustworthy solar installer like Exact Solar, or any other Amicus member company if you live outside of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, because they’re thinking about this problem differently. Here’s how these companies are planning to stick around for the long haul:

One of the coolest things about the solar industry is that thousands of people involved are motivated by the belief that the energy transition just needs to happen. So they often volunteer their time, energy, and attention to deploy even more solar outside of the work they’re paid for. In today’s episode, Aaron interviews Joy Baxter, president of Clean Energy Co-op. This community-owned, volunteer-run cooperative pools money donated by ordinary Pennsylvanians to finance solar projects for nonprofits, co-ops, and community-minded businesses across the state. If you’re interested in how people can get together and affect change on a large scale locally by pooling their time and attention, this is the episode for you. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyLearn about the Clean Energy Co-op, or become a member, at cleanenergy.coop. See the Valley Greene Apartments project (the Co-op’s largest to date, which Exact Solar is building). Expect to learn:How a one-time $100 membership can help you crowdfund solar in your community.Why almost no energy supplier will lock in your electricity price for 25 years, and how an all-volunteer co-op can do exactly that for the buildings it works with.What researchers found when they studied climate anxiety (doing something about it by yourself doesn’t seem to help, but doing it with other people does).Quote from the episode:“Maybe the shift I hope for isn’t in the technology, but in the mindset — that we don’t have to just keep paying the man, and that we can produce our own electricity.” — Joy Baxter

What’s newThe Garden State Balcony Solar Act (S2368/A4836) passed both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature in late June. New Jersey’s new governor, Mikie Sherrill, signed it into law on September 1. It was written with a six-month delay to allow the Board of Public Utilities time to get ready. This means that as of March 1, 2027, any New Jersey resident will be legally allowed to buy a plug-in/balcony solar inverter, buy a few solar panels, set them out in the sun and plug them into the inverter, and plug the inverter into a normal wall outlet. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyThe system will immediately start feeding electricity into their home and saving them money. There’s no permit, no utility approval, and no permission from a landlord or HOA required. To be legal in New Jersey, a plug-in solar system has to check five boxes. It must: Put out no more than 1,200 wattsPlug into a standard 120-volt outletSit on your side of the electric meter and offset your own usageBe listed or certified to UL 3700, the safety standard written specifically for plug-in solarInclude a feature that shuts it off during a blackout, so it can’t send power onto a dead line where a lineworker might be workingAnything putting 400 watts or less into the outlet is exempt from any listing or code provision that would require you to change your building’s wiring or electrical panel. The law allows up to 1200 Watts of solar without approval. Plug-in systems are exempt from interconnection agreements and from net metering rules entirely. Anyone who maxes out that total could save roughly $50 a month on their bill, somewhere between $500-$600 per year depending on how much energy the system outputs. One of the plug-in solar inverters costs somewhere between $300 and $400. You can get good quality solar panels on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist for $100 to $200 each. That means that a plug-in solar system will likely run you between $500 and $1,000, depending on how big it is. It’ll pay for itself in less than 2 to 3 years, just with the avoided cost of electricity.

Aaron talks with John Sheldon, founder of GreatSun Consulting, who has spent almost twenty years inside solar companies as: An installer A salesperson An operator (Now) a consultant who solar companies call when things start to fall apart.If you want to know why growing solar companies start to fail (and what it actually takes to fix the mess before it costs you customers) this is the episode for you. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyConnect with John on LinkedIn here. Learn about his consulting work at greatsunconsulting.com. This Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your 21-year-old, locally owned solar installer for New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Right now, Exact Solar has a PPA backed by the Amicus Solar Cooperative that can put solar on your home for $0 down, dramatically lower your energy bill, and lock in the same price for energy for the next 25 years. If you live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania and you’re fed up with paying ever-rising utility bills, it’s time to see if your home qualifies for Exact Solar’s PPA. Book your Free Consultation With Exact Solar’s Team Expect to learn:Why the companies that call John for more leads, better salespeople, or a new CRM rarely have a lead, salesperson, or CRM problem.What “organizational entropy” looks like (it involves 30 separate spreadsheets, one key person’s memories, and processes nobody can explain beyond “we’ve done it like this since the dinosaurs”). Where AI actually earns its keep in a solar company (and where John has watched it quietly wreck a business’s finances).Quote from the episode:“I don’t think it’s a technology problem so much that they have. It’s a clarity problem. They just lack visibility at scale.” — John Sheldon

What’s newThe U.S. switched on more than 11 gigawatts of residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar between April and June. 43% of all new electrical capacity added was utility-scale solar, and total operating US solar now totals 288 gigawatts. That’s not just some big number. There are millions of individual stories tied into that total. 288 GW of total solar means that millions of people made the individual choice to either put solar on their homes, add solar to their commercial buildings, or advocate for solar in their communities. Then, hundreds of thousands of people had to sell those systems, design them, and install them. Batteries had an even bigger moment this summer. Storage installations hit a record 20.2 gigawatt-hours in the same three months, which is enough stored electricity to run somewhere around 700,000 average American homes for a full day in an outage. Today’s News Roundup is Brought to You By Exact SolarThis Week In Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your locally owned, twenty-year-old solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We’ve spent more than two decades doing work we’re proud of. We’ve put solar on schools, churches, nonprofits, Habitat for Humanity homes, and private businesses. The combined output of the solar energy systems we’ve installed for those organizations has kept millions of dollars in their pockets. That money can now be put to better use, instead of constantly paying ever-rising utility bills. If you own, run, or sit on the board of a commercial building in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, we’d love to show you how much your organization could save by going solar. Talk to Us About a Commercial Solar Project

As energy costs have risen in the US, so has the popularity of plug-in solar. We’ve been tracking American plug-in solar legislation for more than six months now, and excitement is building across the country. People are very excited by the idea that they could just buy solar and plug it in without approval, to lower their utility bills without permission from their utility companies. Critics of plug-in solar legislation often say that there’s no way it can be done safely. Proponents of legislation point to the fact that this has been done safely for more than a decade in Europe with almost no downside. Now, there’s no question that Americans overromanticize European ideas. But in this specific case, they’re right to do so. In today’s episode, Aaron talks with Craig Morris, executive director of the Bundesverband Steckersolar (the German Plug-In Solar Association). Craig has spent 25 years explaining Germany’s energy transition, and now runs the trade group behind the world’s first safety standard for plug-in solar kits. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Connect with Craig on LinkedIn here. Learn more about the German Plug-In Solar Association at bundesverband-steckersolar.de (you can translate the site into English with the menu in the upper right-hand corner). Expect to learn:Why Plug-In Solar took off like a rocket in Germany How Craig and his association have helped guide German policy so that balcony solar stays accessible and fair for consumers (and what we can learn from that as we’re pushing for our own policies)What a kilowatt-hour from one of these systems actually costs. Quote from the episode:“If your balcony cannot support two drunk people leaning against it in the evening, you probably need to fix that balcony. And if it can support your party, however many people leaning up against it for forty-five minutes, it’ll be fine with the solar.” — Craig Morris

Exact Solar is excited to announce that on June 10th, the IRS redrew its map of “energy communities,” and most of Exact Solar’s service area in Southeast Pennsylvania and New Jersey landed inside the lines. Commercial buildings in those areas can now claim an extra 10% federal tax credit on a solar project, on top of the 30% they already qualified for. This IRS designation will offer commercial building owners who go solar within certain counties the opportunity to claim up to 40% back on their commercial solar projects. If their projects qualify for Domestic Content, they can claim up to 50% back on commercial solar projects. Exact Solar worked with the Amicus Solar Cooperative to pre-safe harbor several project slots. Even though the commercial solar tax credit is on an accelerated phase-out, certain companies who work directly with Exact Solar can still claim the tax credit under the old Inflation Reduction Act Rules. If you own or manage a commercial building, a school, a township campus, or a house of worship in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, we’d love to work with you to check if your building could qualify and show you how much your organization could save. Book a time to talk with our team by clicking the link below: Show Me What My Building Qualifies For

Imagine if you opened your electric bill, and it said: “We’ve decided we’re going to pay you this month instead.” Curt Sawyer, an Exact Solar customer in Bucks County, lives in that reality. Curt and his wife Candy went house hunting nine years ago with a very unusual requirement: they wanted a roof that was already worn out, so they could tear it off and build a new roof specifically designed to add solar energy. If you want to know what it feels like to live in a home where energy is free, this is the episode for you. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyWatch Kurt’s full solar tour on our website here. Expect to learn:What happens to your brain once your home’s electricity is free.How going solar can essentially turn your utility company into a savings account that pays you.What net metering and SRECs actually pay to an average homeowner who’s gone solar over time.Quote from the episode:“Once you start actually operating and you realize electricity’s basically free now, you start thinking about your house in a different way.” — Curtis Sawyer 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.Select whether you are an existing customer or a new customer.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

What’s newEarlier this week, Solar Power World published an article called “Sodium Ion Batteries are Ready for World Domination.” (linked at the bottom of today’s episode). At Exact Solar, we love learning about what’s coming, because we always want to have great offerings that serve our customers. So we went looking to learn more about this technology and what needs to happen before it’s widely deployed! TL;DR; Sodium-ion batteries are hitting the market, but have a long way to go before they start being widely deployed. This Week in Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your highly reviewed, locally-owned solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. If you haven’t looked into solar for your home yet, book a time to talk to Exact Solar’s team by clicking the link below, and we will walk you through how much you could save by putting solar energy on your property. Show Me The Numbers for My Home

Aaron talks with Devi Ramkissoon, the first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Devi’s a great storyteller and was a joy to interview. She came to her current role after running economic growth programs at USAID and a stint as the executive director of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia. If you want to know what sustainability work actually looks like day-to-day in local government (and how to talk about sustainability with people who do not care about “being green”), this is the episode for you. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyYou can connect with Devi on LinkedIn here. Find our episode about our latest installation in Montgomery County here: Upper Dublin Township Goes Solar Meet Devi in person at We Conserve Pa in October: We Conserve PA 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. 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. 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 Expect to learn:How Devi makes the case for sustainable projects to people who don’t care about sustainability.The way Devi thinks about making lasting change in the world. Quote from the episode:“Procurement is not a sexy thing. It’s not going to make the front pages of the Inquirer. But it’s something that I think has a powerful and lasting impact.” — Devi Ramkissoon

It’s a great week for New Jersey farmers and anyone who buys their power from PECO (the utility that covers Southeast PA and the city of Philadelphia). After listening to this episode, anyone intrigued about putting solar or batteries on their property in New Jersey or Pennsylvania should contact Exact Solar. Book my free estimate with Exact Solar’s team Last week, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities signed off on 52.06 megawatts across farms in eight counties in the opening round of the Dual-Use Solar Energy Pilot Program. (“Dual-use” means putting solar panels above or between crops instead of replacing the crops, not “covering farmland in solar panels so it can never be used for anything else,” as opponents to this type of legislation have suggested). These 16 farms will grow soybeans, hay, grains, vegetables and fruit under and around the panels. Some will graze livestock between the panels. They’re spread across Atlantic, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Monmouth, Salem and Warren counties. At the same time, PECO officially launched Flex & Save, a program that pays homeowners for letting them borrow power from their home battery during times of high need. PECO says the average participant will earn roughly $480 a year, up to $640 per year. This Week in Solar is always brought to you by Exact Solar, your highly reviewed, locally-owned solar installer for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. If you’re interested in participating in either of these programs, book a time to talk to Exact Solar’s team by clicking the link below, and we will walk you through how much you could save by putting solar energy on your property. Show Me The Numbers for My Home

Realtors often think of solar as a four-letter word. So how do we change that? Today’s episode was recorded live in front of an audience and features two guests: John Nichols is a realtor with Lokation Real Estate who has had some frustrating experiences with solar energy systems during home transactions. Kate Collardson has two decades in the solar industry under her belt, and now runs a solar inspection and service business that helps give home-buyers peace of mind. If you own solar, want to own solar, or might someday buy or sell a house that has solar on the roof, this is for you. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyConnect with John on LinkedIn here. Connect with Kate on LinkedIn here. Watch Kate’s first appearance on the show here: We Can Fix Solar’s Recycling Problem. Expect to learn:Why a paid-off solar system can add $10,000 to $30,000 to a home’s appraised value.The single most important thing to demand before you buy a house with solar panels.How you can find service and production records for solar panels on homes (even if the company that installed them is out of business).More like this from the archives:How We Fix The Solar Service Crisis: Sean SwentekHow Any Homeowner Can Choose the Right Solar Company: Laura GutierrezMy Experience Going Solar With a Great Local Installer: Thomas Crookham

What’s newI’m going to be testing a plug-in solar system on my house, and as I’ve researched the best way to set it up, I’ve realized that some limitations will have to be solved before this is widely adopted in the U.S. Yesterday I went to pick up a few panels at my local Green Tech Renewables to test with my new plug-in solar inverter, and we spent most of the time I was there talking about a problem we’re both seeing. Listen to this episode here, or on: YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyWe interchangeably call plug-in solar “balcony solar,” but at the moment, there are only a few solutions for actually mounting these panels to balconies, and no widely available standard. That’s a big problem. Solar panels can weigh between 30 and 50 lbs., and they have sharp corners. If people are going to be mounting them on apartment balconies, we need to know beyond any reasonable doubt that they are securely mounted. We don’t want someone four stories below getting taken out by a falling solar panel. I personally live in a home that has a lot of shade in all areas except the roof, but I’m not ready to commit to mounting the panels on my roof. There are a few areas I could lean them against things, but then they’re just sitting out in the open, vulnerable to the elements and theft. 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. Energy costs are skyrocketing in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and no one has a good plan to fix it. You can’t control what the power company charges next year, but you can opt out of the cycle by going solar. Our customers have told us over and over again that they don’t get mad anymore when the power company raises rates, because it just doesn’t even apply to them. If you live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, we’d love to show you the numbers. Book Your Free Solar Estimate