Illu Digital Learning & Work Verification Software

Can you believe California's demand response capacity is less than 1/5 of Alabama's? Minnesota's? Despite high pe*******on of DERs and highly publicized pilot programs, California's VPP rollout "is just not yet happening at the scale you would expect," per the Brattle Group's new report. The researchers conclude the biggest gap is still in "seamless participation".

The illu team has also heard repeatedly that bureaucratic difficulties in enrollment and registration has caused major headaches in VPP participation. We're working with manufacturers now to embed VPP registrations seamlessly within the commissioning process, targeting the ConnectedSolutions, SGIP and LUMA programs. If you'd like to collaborate, please reach out!

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📢 We’re excited to share some news about an upcoming change that affects our mobile application on iOS and Android — it’s now called “illu EnergyPros.” This update is more than just a tweak to the name; it’s a reflection of our ongoing commitment to providing a versatile platform for everyone driving the clean energy transition.

Learn more about this change on our medium post:

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The energy transition and broad electrification of heat, industrial processes, and transportation means that utilities are facing rising peak demand for the first time in decades. Instead of default to the status quo of bringing on more centralized capacity, there's a compelling case for integration distributed capacity through VPPs as a more efficient and equitable strategy that can also deliver better economic outcomes to the utilities themselves. However this depends on successful collaboration and partnerships between the utilities to lay out the right incentive framework, manufacturers to connect their distributed assets to the VPP programs, and electricians & contractors to install and maintain the equipment. Ultimately, "electrification can be a challenge or it can be an opportunity. It’s our choice to make."

Jigar Shah: A tale of two utilities | Latitude Media It’s time for electricity providers to choose virtual power plants.

Our co-founder, Sierra Fan, was featured on the Power Flow Media podcast this week! Check it out to hear about how illu as a software came to be and how it can be used to empower technicians in the field.

3.06 On Streamlining Technology Deployment in the Field with Sierra Fan - Power Flow In this episode, Sierra Fan describes co-founding illu to better support technicians in the renewable energy field. She says, “It really came from personal experience… we tried to look for the software. We thought someone must have built something...

E2's report assessed that there will be new employment spurred by 210 major clean-energy projects announced in the first 12 months after IRA’s passage. Specifically, a total of 303,500 jobs each year over a typical five-year construction phase, and a total of another 99,600 jobs each year after that in their long-term operations.

The biggest driver of jobs in the renewable energy sector is in EV (58%) and batteries (17%). The clean energy transition is happening at scale and we should recognize the importance in training the newcomers that are growing in these new professions.

How many jobs is the Inflation Reduction Act spurring? A lot A new analysis finds 400,000-plus jobs will be created from the 210 EV, battery and clean energy projects launched since the climate law passed.

Nigeria experienced an explosion on a major transmission line last week, causing a "total system collapse" as reported by its electrical distribution companies. Power generation fell to zero at one point. The Nigerian grid collapsed at least 4 times in 2022.

Gas-powered generators had been the de-facto backup option for the millions of residents dealing with these power failures. However, it's becoming more prohibitively expensive as gas prices have doubled over the past year. There's an opportunity to bring in a cleaner and more affordable solution through new solar and storage technologies.

Nigeria restoring power after nationwide blackouts Nigeria's electricity distribution companies reported "a total system collapse" on Thursday after a fire on a major transmission line, causing widespread blackouts across Africa's biggest economy, before power slowly started to return.

Soft costs are increasingly dominating the total costs of installing solar energy systems. However, "we haven’t been thinking about soft technology design as systematically as we have for hardware. That needs to change." says Prof. Trancik of MIT. The study authors specifically identified "creating more efficient workflows for system installation" as one of the key strategies to bring soft costs down, especially around "processes that still happen in a very low-tech way through people communicating with one another."

illu is doing exactly this! We are proud to be tackling exactly this strategy to continue reducing installation & O&M costs for solar and distributed energy.

To improve solar and other clean energy tech, look beyond hardware A new analysis from MIT researchers reveals that soft technology, the processes to design and deploy a solar energy system, contributed far less to the total cost declines of solar installations than previously estimated. Their quantitative model shows that driving down solar energy costs in the fut...

We're excited to announce the launch of the new illu website! Our team has been working around the clock to bring up new exciting features. The new site covers how everything fits into the flow of deploying new solar, storage, and electrification assets, with specific use case examples.

Come take a peek at https://www.illu.works/!

Texas isn't commonly known for being green, but the state is giving California some competition when it comes to new solar and battery installations. Texas accounted for nearly 70% of grid battery additions in the U.S. in the first three months of 2023, resulting in a total capacity of 3,300 MW, almost all of which have come online since early 2021. The Texas grid today is holding up well even during the heat wave, indicating that it's much more resilient than the Texas grid that failed during Winter Storm Uri in 2021.

Batteries And Renewables Are Saving Texas During The Heat Wave Renewables and storage are saving Texans money as temperatures soar and coal and natural gas power plants fail.

🎉 Amazing to see that we added ~300,000 jobs to the clean energy sector in 2022, bringing the total up to 8.1 million jobs. illu is excited to help onboard and orient these new entrants into the sector by giving them the tools and guidance to succeed on the energy frontlines. 🔧🛠

6 Things You Should Know About the Energy Economy Right Now This year, we have a clear picture of the positive impact of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. Here are 6 key findings from the report

📢 New feature alert! illu now offers Custom Tags on Jobs. Easily filter and find the jobs you need by filtering and searching their tags.

All users can now define custom tags to be attached to any job, which can be used for categorization such as priority, equipment, or type.

📢 New feature alert! illu now offers Photo Markup!

Now, when you take in the field, you can easily annotate and mark up the image to draw attention to specific details or issues. Users can leave notes, captions, helpful icons, and freehand drawings on any photos taken or uploaded. Managers and technical support can easily share and review marked up photos to guide next steps. Photos are also rolled up into job reports.

At illu, we're doing our work because we know supporting field teams on the ground and building the workforce we need is an absolutely critical part of the clean energy transition. We applaud the efforts of the Biden-Harris administration to lead the way through this roadmap. The administration is focusing this effort through 4 main programs: Connecting people to good jobs, Preparing workers through education and training programs, Ensuring every community can meet its foundational labor needs, and Boosting Job quality to promote recruitment and retention.

Biden-Harris Administration Roadmap to Support Good Jobs - The White House The Biden-Harris Investing in America Agenda is sparking a manufacturing, construction, and clean energy renaissance across the country. To help ensure America’s workers can access the good jobs created by historic new investments, the Administration is aligning on a whole-of-government effort, th...

Rewiring America reported that the United States will need 1 million more electricians to install solar panels, heat pumps and EV charging infrastructure to meet the country's goals. Yet, only 2% of our existing electrician labor force is female. Bringing more women in in apprentice programs, inspiring young girls and investing in their STEM education is key to diversifying the future labor force.

The US electrician shortage has a simple fix: Recruit more women Decarbonization means electrification, and electrification means more electricians. Women, who represent just 2% of U.S. electricians, could help the profession grow.

For the first time, the average LCOE for utility-scale PV increased year-to-year, mainly due to a combination of inflation, supply chain challenges, and the global energy crisis. While we cannot control these factors, there is a significant opportunity to reduce soft costs through streamlining processes and overall deployment efficiency. illu can help make this easier for solar teams so we can continue to make solar even more competitive as a generation resource.

Average solar LCOE increases for first time this year A new report by Lazard compares the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for various generation technologies on a $/MWh basis. It shows that utility-scale solar and onshore wind LCOE increased for the first time in 2023, at $24/MWh to $96/MWh for solar and $24/MWh to $75 MWh for wind. Nevertheless, the t...

A whopping 141 million US residents across 40 states were impacted by power capacity contraints in 2022. Communities of color and low income communities were impacted the worst. In Minnesota, they experienced >50% higher instances of long duration outages compared to others in the same county. CAISO narrowly avoided blackouts in September, helped greatly by tapping into 900MW of distributed battery capacity during peak hours.

DERs have proven itself again to provide cost savings and resiliency benefits. We should all look to realize and open more DER potentials in 2023.

pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/04/04/141-million-americans-impacted-by-electricity-capacity-constraints-in-2022/

Our co-founder Sierra Fan had the pleasure of attending RE+ Northern California last week and meeting renewable energy companies in the region. It’s so great to see people at RE+ Events even in the middle of NEM 2.0 program wrapping up!

We are excited to share some new features to make it easier for your team to stay on-top of your technical work & know-how. Now, you can generate a PDF report with a click of a button! Check out the feature on illu.works.

illu formats all the data, photos, and insights collected through workflows into a professional document that's ready to share internally and externally.

As solar deployment ramps up and existing plants age, we need to turn a dedicated eye toward the growing problem of underperformance. Since 2019, reported power loss due to to anomalies has increased by 92%, a staggering 19% increase YoY (Raptor Maps' Global Solar Report). Even some of the least sophisticated parts the system, such as combiner boxes, cause a significant amount of losses. In most failure types, workmanship and manufacturing errors are the cause, highlighting the paramount importance of work standardization and quality control.

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Sizing up shortfalls: Underperforming assets are plaguing the solar industry When it comes to solar asset performance, the finance industry says past performance is no guarantee of future results.

The clean energy transition provides an opportunity to revise historical injustices in America's energy infrastructure. Cost savings from rooftop solar, cleaner air to local communities, mitigating the effects of climate change felt by the most vulnerable societies, and employment for the country's communities of color and underserved ones - are all measurements that we should be gauging as the world bring in the new energy era.

Flipping the Script on the Public Health and Wealth-Building Benefits of Clean Energy | SEIA The United States is entering a new era powered by abundant, low-cost clean energy. By 2030, solar energy can meet 30% of U.S. electricity generation while creating $100 billion of annual economic investment and supporting one million family-sustaining jobs. This vision is achievable, but without at...

illu is attending RE+ Northeast in Boston on February 22-23!

🤝 If you're attending, let’s get together to discuss how we can support your field teams for deploying, operating, and maintaining distributed renewable energy (DRE) systems. Check out our link - https://lnkd.in/dUKiuYqC to schedule time with our co-founder, Sierra Fan!

While the solar industry reports 26-30% of the workforce as women, only 1-3% are out in the field. Many of the women employed in the industry are in marketing, HR and sales; fewer women in project management and design. Women comprise 4% of electricians nationally. It is important for the companies to lay the ground work NOW to retain and recruit women so that today's female installers enjoy the work they do in a safe and supportive environment but also to inspire girls in STEM classes about diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry. 👷‍♀️ 👷‍♀️ 👷‍♀️

Growing the Number of Female Installers | American Solar Energy Society Riley Neugebauer, solar installer and apprentice at Namaste Solar, works on a residential solar project. (Credit: Juan Blohm)

We are thrilled to announce our partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to design and field test operating procedures for residential and C&I solar projects! 🎉

We are going to put illu's Workflows to the test to see how we can best leverage them as a tool to support installers & operators to save time on services and avoided truck rolls. Stay tuned!

This week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP) launched the Community Power Accelerator to support the deployment of equitable community solar projects. The Community Power Accelerator, with its $10 million prize will leverage $5 billion in private-sector financing commitments, intended to provide technical assistance to mission-aligned project developers and community-based organizations to build community solar projects, particularly in disadvantaged and underrepresented communities.

DOE Launches $10 Million Prize to Accelerate Community Solar in Underrepresented Communities DOE’s Community Power Accelerator™ Will Help Create Pipeline of Projects Ready for Financing, Award-Winning Projects Demonstrate Best Practices in Community Solar

Training inmates in solar installation, buying up electrical companies to acquire technicians, bringing staff from UK and Asia to train US trainers, covering 100% life insurance costs and matching retirement plan contributions up to 6.5%, above the national average of 5.6% - these are all measures that solar, wind and electric vehicle companies are contemplating to meet the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Biden's climate agenda has a problem: Not enough workers U.S. clean energy companies are offering better wages and benefits, flying in trainers from overseas, and contemplating ideas like buying roofing and electric repair shops just to hire their workers as firms try to overcome a labor shortage that threatens to derail President Joe Biden's climate chan...

✨ The holiday season just got a little more festive here at with a new addition to our team! Our new software engineer, Tracey Luke, hails from California and brings almost a decade of experience working at Apple, 4 years as a Quality Assurance Engineer and 5.5 years as an Automation Engineer. She graduated from Harvey Mudd College with a Bachelors of Science degree in Engineering.

Tracey says, "I'm excited to join forces with the passionate and knowledgeable team at illu in their work to improve access to renewable energy worldwide. As an engineer, I'm looking forward to using my background in software and QA to help build quality products for our customers and work towards a cleaner future for the world."

Welcome to illu, Tracey! 🎇

More than 60% of utility leaders surveyed said their utilities have deployed or are currently working to deploy a microgrid, with that number jumping to 82% for respondents at IOUs - according to a recent survey by Microgrid Knowledge and Enchanted Rock. Microgrids' strengths - resiliency, the ability to provide backup power, reliability and economic benefits of dispatchable microgrids - align with utilities' mandate of providing safe, reliable, and affordable energy to customers in their service territories.

Utility execs have microgrids in mind for future value-added services A new survey from Microgrid Knowledge and Enchanted Rock offers insight into how utility executives view microgrids

This year has seen illu grow as a team and we are thankful to have the opportunity to travel to conferences and work sites internationally while working from home. wishes everyone a happy and relaxing season!

The inaugural IEA report which offers the first worldwide benchmark for employment across energy industries was published last week. Energy jobs have bounced back stronger than pre-pandemic levels. In all IEA scenarios, clean energy employment is projected to grow. In the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, 14 million new clean energy jobs are created by 2030, while another 16 million workers switch to new roles related to clean energy. New energy jobs may not always be in the same location nor require the same skills as the jobs they replace, requiring policy makers to focus on job training and capacity building to ensure that energy transitions benefit as many people as possible.

World Energy Employment – Analysis - IEA World Energy Employment - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.