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62 A COmPrEHENSIVE GUIDE TO SOlAr ENErGy SySTEmS

FIGURE 4.14 Sample shading report from heliscope of residential system [13]. Mastering Green.

Portal that provides installers and owners with data for installed capacity, cost per watt,
and incentive levels, among other information [12].
Other noteworthy tools funded by the DOE include Helioscope and Aurora Solar, PV
design software that enables overlay of structural and electrical designs onto geospatial
data (roof area, lIDAr, shading) to quickly estimate system performance and financial
returns without the need for AutoCAD and PVsyst. A sample of a Heliostat application by
Ginsberg is shown in Fig. 4.14.
Skills-building: Improvement of installer skills is another critical component to soft
cost reduction. The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP),
with its PV Installer certification, is one of the primary educational bodies that accredits
trainers, and will be discussed in Section 4.3 on Workforce Development.

4.1.2 Federal Policy

Politics has been a critical determinant of the US energy industry since the advent of elec-
tricity. Aside from the 30% ITC for PV, which was extended through 2021, congressional
action has been largely absent. Politics continues to dominate the debate on rE, most
recently from aspirational to pessimistic analyses on the feasibility of rapid rE penetration
to the grid. The spectrum of opinions is wide, from Jacobson and Delucchi’s “50-State
roadmap” to 100% renewable energy by 2050, and Fthenakis, Zweibel and mason’s 69%
rE by 2050, to the study on “Protecting the long-Term reliability of the Electric Grid”