EnergySage
125 Lincoln St, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

EnergySage is on a mission to make going solar as easy as booking a flight online. Everyday there are millions of Americans shopping for solar, and thousands of solar providers looking for well-qualified customers. Yet buying and selling solar remains as inefficient, confusing and costly as ever. There hasn’t been a simple, online marketplace for both parties to meet and interact with one another – until now. Our innovative, yet simple solution has already won the support and backing of the U.S. Department of Energy, New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, Connecticut Green Bank, and Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. We’re in over 30 states now, and we’re growing fast!

Go solar with confidence.

On EnergySage, you are in control of your solar buying experience. No more door-to-door salesmen, no more unwanted phone calls. We provide a 100% online experience that allows you to receive and compare multiple solar quotes first, and then decide which installer is right for you.

What does EnergySage do for you?

Think of us as your unbiased solar matchmaker, connecting homeowners with our network of over 500 pre-screened solar installers. People who use EnergySage generally save $5,000 to $10,000 as compared to those who only work with a single installer.  Our platform aggregates multiple solar quotes for you, calculates the financial merits of each offer, and then presents them back to you in an easy-to-understand format. Our mission is to make going solar as easy as booking a flight online.

Solar energy: what you need to know

Solar power is usable energy generated from the sun in the form of electric or thermal energy. Solar energy is captured in a variety of ways, the most common of which is with photovoltaic solar panels that convert the sun’s rays into usable electricity. Aside from using photovoltaics to generate electricity, solar energy is commonly used in thermal applications to heat indoor spaces or fluids. Residential and commercial property owners can install solar hot water systems and design their buildings with passive solar heating in mind to fully take advantage of the sun's energy with solar technology.  Interested in benefiting from solar power? Solar panels are installed at three main scales: residential, commercial, and utility. Residential-scale solar is typically installed on rooftops of homes or in open land (ground-mounted) and is generally between 5 and 20 kilowatts (kW), depending on the size of a property. Commercial solar energy projects are generally installed at a greater scale than residential solar. Though individual installations can vary greatly in size, commercial-scale solar serves a consistent purpose: to provide on-site solar power to businesses and non-profits. Finally, utility-scale solar projects are typically large, several megawatt (MW) installations that provide solar energy to a large number of utility customers.  For some solar shoppers who may not be able to install solar on their property, community solar is a viable solar option that more directly connects utility-scale solar energy projects to residential consumers. As such, community solar farms are typically built in a central location as opposed to on any single customer’s property. Residential consumers can subscribe to a community solar project to receive many of the benefits of solar power without installing solar panels on their property.

How does solar energy work?

A solar panel (also known as a solar module) consists of a layer of silicon cells, a metal frame, a glass casing unit, and wiring to transfer electric current from the silicon. Silicon (atomic #14 on the periodic table) is a nonmetal with conductive properties that allow it to absorb and convert sunlight into usable electricity. When light hits a silicon cell, the light causes electrons in the silicon to be set in motion, initiating a flow of electric current. This is known as the “photovoltaic effect,” and it describes the general functionality of solar panel tech.  The science of generating electricity with solar panels boils down to this photovoltaic effect. It was first discovered in 1839 by Edmond Becquerel and can be thought of as a property of specific materials (known as semiconductors) that allows them to create an electric current when they are exposed to sunlight. 

Solar energy is a renewable power source

Solar energy is a clean, inexpensive, renewable power source that is harnessable nearly everywhere in the world - any point where sunlight hits the surface of the earth is a potential location to generate solar power. And since solar energy comes from the sun, it represents a limitless source of power. Renewable energy technologies generate electricity from resources that are infinite. Compare, for instance, producing electricity with renewable resources to doing so with fossil fuels. It took hundreds of thousands of years for oil, gas and coal to form, so every time one of those resources are burned to create electricity, that finite resource is moved marginally closer to depletion. Using a renewable resource - such as wind, solar and hydropower - to generate electricity, does not deplete that resource. There will always be consistent sunlight shining on Earth's surface, and after turning sunlight into electricity, there is still an infinite amount of sunlight to turn into electricity in the future. That is what makes solar power, by nature, renewable energy.  While the current electricity mix in the United States is still made up largely of fossil fuels like oil and gas, renewable energy sources like solar are steadily becoming a larger part of the country's energy profile. As the cost of solar and other renewable technologies continues to be competitive.

The photovoltaic process works through the following broad steps:

• The silicon photovoltaic solar cell absorbs solar radiation
• When the sun’s rays interact with the silicon cell, electrons begin to move, creating a flow of electric current
• Wires capture and feed this direct current (DC) electricity to a solar inverter to be converted to alternating current (AC) electricity

What is renewable energy?

Renewable energy is energy that comes from resources that cannot be depleted or those that constantly replenish over time. The most common examples of renewable energy are solar energy, wind power, geothermal power, hydropower, and biomass. Many forms of renewable energy are directly or indirectly derived from the sun; others come from heat within the earth or the gravitational pull of the moon.  While some types of renewable energy like solar and wind power are virtually limitless, renewable resources like biomass are replenished within a human lifespan. This is a key distinction from non-renewable energy sources like coal, oil, and gas; these resources take millions of years to form deep in the earth, and as such, they are depleted many times faster than they can regenerate naturally.

• Solar energy is energy derived directly from the sun. We can capture this incoming light energy is a variety of ways, including with concentrated solar technology, solar thermal design, and solar photovoltaic panels. Solar energy is collected at various scales, from small residential setups to sprawling utility-scale solar farms. 
• Wind power is energy generated from the wind, which is simply air flow within the earth’s atmosphere. Wind energy is actually an indirect form of solar energy; because the sun heats the earth’s surface unevenly, air flows in small and large patterns around the globe to distribute the sun’s heat. By using wind turbines of various sizes and setups, we can harness this moving air to spin turbines that generate electricity.
• Hydropower (also referred to as hydroelectricity) relies on energy in moving water to produce energy. There are several ways we can generate power from water. Most commonly, rivers are dammed to store water in a reservoir that can be released through a turbine system to generate electricity. Additionally, tidal power and wave power are secondary ways of generating electricity from water, using the ebb and flow of tides and the power of ocean waves, respectively. All three of these types of hydroelectricity generation rely on moving water to spin turbines.
• We can also find a reliable source of renewable energy beneath our feet. Geothermal energy is heat derived from the radioactive decay of particles deep within the earth. All rocks contain trace amounts of radioactive material that decays slowly over millions of years, generating heat in the process. This heat can be seen in at the surface in the form of volcanoes, but just about everywhere under the earth’s surface, geothermal heat warms the ground and rock, thus can be used for heating and electricity generation.
• Renewable energy generated from organic plant and animal matter is known as biomass. Biomass is perhaps one of the most traditional renewable energy sources: some examples include wood, crop waste, and animal manure. Biomass fuels can either beburned directly to produce heat, or converted into biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel that can be burned later.