How To Keep Solar Workers Safe In Extreme Heat
Originally published by Union of Concerned Scientists, The Equation.
By Adenike Adeyeye
Climate change-induced heat waves have been brutal across the country this summer, and perhaps paradoxically, the workers who are helping us avoid the worst of climate change are particularly at risk in this heat. Clean energy workers who are installing solar panels work outdoors and face high risk of heat stress when temperatures climb. At the same time, many of these workers are not a part of any union and do not have bargaining power to make sure they receive the workplace protections they deserve by law. Let’s take a look at how greater workplace protections, like unionization, would help these workers stay safe in extreme heat.
Outdoor solar workers make up the majority of a growing industry
The solar industry is growing across the board, given solar energy is one of the key tools in our race to blunt the effects of climate change. In 2020, 231,474 people were employed in the solar industry, and just 10% of those workers were part of a union. (This is similar to the economy-wide union rate: in 2019, 10.3% of all workers were union members.) The industry is projected to employ 400,000 workers by 2030. The Biden administration has prioritized clean energy jobs to revitalize a sluggish economy while mitigating the effects of climate change, and the Solar Foundation has estimated that reaching the goals of the Biden Administration’s clean energy standard would require 900,000 solar workers by 2035.
To narrow our focus down to outdoor workers, let’s look at the stats for workers in installation or construction related jobs in the solar industry. They make up 67% of all workers in the industry, or an estimated 154,610 jobs in 2020, and 11.7% of them were members of a union. If the industry grows to 900,000 workers by 2035 as the Solar Foundation estimates, that means more than 600,000 people in the solar industry will be working outdoors. If the proportion of unionized workers stays the same, approximately 70,500 outdoor workers will be unionized and over 530,000 outdoor workers will not be unionized.
While this blog assumes that installation and construction jobs are outdoors, they are not the only jobs that might take place outside. Some solar marketing jobs require workers to go door to door to sell homeowners on installing rooftop solar. There were 25,663 sales and distribution workers in 2020, but it is unclear what proportion of those people worked outdoors. Those door-to-door workers would also benefit from heat safety protections. Similarly, outdoor workers in other clean energy industries would also benefit from stronger workplace protections.
What outdoor heat protections do solar workers need?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, lists extreme heat as one of the green job hazards that solar workers experience. As summer weather gets more and more extreme in the West and across the country, employers need to provide outdoor workers with schedule changes, personal protective equipment, hydration, and breaks necessary to keep them healthy. And shockingly, there are no federal laws requiring employers to offer these protections to workers. OSHA recommends, but does not require, limiting sun exposure during the most intense periods for UV radiation — from 10 am to 4pm — as well as working in the shade, taking frequent short breaks, and staying hydrated by drinking water frequently. Public health and workplace safety officials also recommend employers to give workers time to adjust to rising temperatures. This process is called acclimatization and it allows workers to work shorter or less intense shifts while their bodies get used to the heat.
Following the OSHA guidelines could be easier said than done for some outdoor solar workers, depending on their employers. To comply with these guidelines, employers will need to allow their employees to take breaks often. They will need to shift the workday to minimize the amount of work happening at the hottest times of day. They may need additional labor while workers acclimatize — the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health states that new workers should have no more than 20% exposure to heat (relative to a normal workday) on their first day at work, and the exposure can increase no more than 20% per day after that.
Employers’ responsibilities to keep the work environment safe grow as the heat index rises. When the heat index ranges from 103 to 115 degrees, OSHA categorizes the risk level as high and calls for employers to provide water, encourage employees to drink water frequently, have medical personnel on site or available within 3-4 minutes, and actively enforce frequent breaks to prevent heat stress. When the heat index is above 115 degrees, the OSHA risk level rises to “very high to extreme” and employers are supposed to reschedule any nonessential work to a cooler day. These precautions are necessary to protect workers’ health but also come at a cost to the employer and are not federally mandated. Safeguards are needed to make sure employers comply with their duty to protect workers, particularly when temperatures rise. There is a bill before Congress now, the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Prevention Act, that would require OSHA to adopt true, enforceable heat protection standards — passage of this bill would go a long way toward protecting outdoor workers.
Adequate protection for solar workers is no small matter: heat stress is a dangerous, even deadly, job hazard for outdoor workers. There are dozens of fatalities every year due to heat stress or heat stroke from working in extreme heat, according to OSHA. Construction workers, like those who work to install solar panels, account for a significant portion of heat-related fatalities, as the infographic below shows.
Unionization and prevailing wage standards create safer workplaces
One way to protect workers across the board is unionization. Unions advocate on behalf of workers to ensure safe workplaces as well as fair compensation and benefits. Almost 90% of solar workers, however, are not unionized, as described above. Making unionization more widespread would require new approaches, such as incentives for project developers or policy changes like the PRO Act which was passed in the US House of Representatives in March.
Increased unionization in the solar industry could improve the quality of solar industry jobs in a variety of ways. Unionizing provides workers with bargaining power. That often translates to more accountability for employers, which can lead to safer workplaces. Say, for example, it’s a blisteringly hot day and the heat index is 105 degrees. According to OSHA, the supervisor at a job site installing solar panels should be actively encouraging workers to take frequent breaks when the heat index is that high. But these breaks are only mandated by law in a handful of states. And people aren’t perfect: even in states where breaks are required, the supervisor on that day may not be telling workers to take frequent breaks. Who is more likely to speak up and ask for the break they are legally entitled to? A worker who has the protection of a union or a worker who feels as if they could be replaced or let go?
In addition to unionization, there are other policies that can be used to improve job quality and safety for outdoor clean energy workers. A UC Berkeley report found that smaller scale, residential solar projects offer lower wages and fewer paths for career advancement than large-scale solar projects. The difference between the smaller scale and larger scale projects is that the larger scale projects are often required to use project labor agreements (PLAs). State law can direct or require PLAs for large-scale clean energy projects. PLAs are negotiated to provide livable wages, benefits, and safer workspaces. Like PLAs, community workforce agreements (CWAs) can help ensure that workers receive high quality, safe jobs and that employers prioritize local hiring and hiring from disadvantaged communities. Workers benefit when large scale solar projects use PLAs and CWAs, and smaller scale projects that typically are not held to PLAs and CWAs might be able to produce higher quality jobs by adopting similar standards for livable wages and benefits.
Lastly, prevailing wage standards also help empower workers and create higher quality jobs. Prevailing wage “establishes a wage floor for each occupation that all contractors on a project must pay at or above — typically set to reflect the average or market average for a given type of work in a given area.” Prevailing wage standards may also “require contributions to workers’ benefits such as healthcare, paid time off, retirement funds, and apprenticeship training.” Research from the UC Berkeley Labor Center has found that prevailing wage has minimal impacts on project cost while offering significant benefits via improved worksite productivity. While higher pay and better benefits is not directly tied to workplace safety, research suggests that states with prevailing wage laws report fewer construction injuries than those without prevailing wage laws. PLAs, CWAs, and prevailing wage agreements have helped make jobs safer and more lucrative for workers.
The solar industry is a critical sector in transitioning our economy from its reliance on fossil fuels to clean energy. The industry should serve as a model in how it protects its workers, especially as its ranks continue to grow and our summers get hotter and hotter. Policies designed to give outdoor workers the job protections they deserve should become the norm, rather than the exception, in the solar industry.
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I’m going to start this off by immediately begging you not to buy this ridiculous contraption you’ll see in the article below. You’ve been warned. Ok, now feast your eyes on this monstrosity! A $350 e-bike from Alibaba that comes with not just a suspension fork, not just full-suspension, but at least five more shocks than any bike should ever conceivably possess, seemingly randomly sprinkled around the bike’s frame.
Credit goes to my publisher, Seth, for finding this absolute gem. He and I play a little game where we send each other increasingly ridiculous Alibaba finds, trying to one-up the insanity of the other’s previous find. This one is definitely a contender.
Spotted on AliExpress’s platform, the site that makes it dangerously easy to procure the strangest (and sometimes coolest) things from the Far East, this is an e-bike that just keeps on giving.
First of all, check out the suspension. There’s a front suspension fork, which is theoretically standard. There’s also rear suspension, but instead of the single rear shock or occasional dual shocks (one on either side), the designers of this e-bike gave us quad shocks. Then, instead of leaving not-well-enough alone, they decided that a rear swingarm with quad shocks wasn’t enough, and then turned the entire rear half of the e-bike into another swingarm with two more shocks.
At this point, I’m starting to get confused. Do we call the battery sprung or unsprung weight now?
This much suspension is like trying to drink from a firehose, but we’re not even finished. Because if that wasn’t enough springiness for you, there are two more springs in the saddle, technically bringing us up to 10 springs total! A guy hit a speed bump on this e-bike last week, and some say he’s still bouncing.
While I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, my experience with the cheapest of Alibaba e-bikes tells me that they likely didn’t modify the spring rate of the shocks when they just kept copy/pasting them. That means the bike probably rides stiffer than if it had half the number of shocks (or it just has the proper pre-load for a 600 lb rider).
Unfortunately, the rest of the bike is rather par for the course in terms of cheap direct-from-China electric bicycles. We’ve got our “500 Watt” motor, a surprisingly large 48V 15Ah battery, folding handlebars, a cute little rear kid’s seat complete with grab bar (a nice touch, to be honest), a full twist throttle, fenders, and even a complete lighting package with turn signals.
The 66-lb (30 kg) bike isn’t very light, but each of those shocks adds to the poundage, not to mention all the other doodads we’ve got bolted on around the bike.
The bike still folds in half, which is surprising considering most of the frame is taken up by springs. At first glance, I didn’t even see the folding mechanism hiding there.
It’s a wild specimen, and the free shipping to the US makes the $350 price even more tempting. But please don’t buy something like this (that lead image is AI-generated… I didn’t buy or ride this!). There are some real concerns here. Who knows what kind of quality control or safety certification went into that battery, let alone the frame and other key components?
Let’s just enjoy this one on the screen like most of my Alibaba finds and appreciate that someone out there said, “let’s see how many cheap shocks we can fit on a bike,” and nobody stopped them.
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Can an EV really help power your home when the power goes out? It’s one of the biggest FAQs people have about electric cars — but the answer can be a bit confusing. It’s either a yes, with a but – or a no, with an unless. To find out which EVs can offer vehicle-to-home (V2H) tech to keep the lights on or even lower your energy bills, keep on reading.
Modern EVs have big, efficient batteries capable of storing enough energy to power home for days. That can mean backup power during a storm or the ability to use stored energy during expensive peak hours and recharge again when kilowatts are cheap.
That’s all true – but only in theory. Because, while your EV might have a big battery, that doesn’t mean it has the special hardware and software that allow electricity to safely flow back out of the car baked in. Car companies call this vehicle-to-home (V2H) or bi-directional charging, and only a handful of models currently support it. That’s that, “yes, with a but” asterisk.
Yes, an EV can power your home, but it has to be one of these.
Ford F-150 Lightning
Ford made early headlines using its F-150 Lightning as a life-saving generator during winter ice storms and hurricanes, so it should come as no surprise that it’s included in this list. The best-selling electric truck in America can send up to 9.6 kW of power from its onboard batteries back to the house. More than enough to keep the lights on and the refrigerator running during an outage.
To make it work, you’ll need to install the Charge Station Pro (formerly called Intelligent Backup Power) home charger, the Home Integration System (HIS), which includes an inverter, a transfer switch, and a small battery to switch the system on, as well Ford’s Charge Station Pro 80A bi-directional charger (which comes free with the Extended Range F-150 Lightning, but costs about $1,300 otherwise).
All-in, you’re looking at about $5,000 in hardware, plus installation, to make it work.
Kia EV9
With up to 300 miles of range and ultra-fast charging, the seven-passenger electric SUV from Kia has been a hot seller. And back in March, the Kia EV9 unlocked yet another new feature: vehicle-to-home charging.
When paired with the Quasar 2 bidirectional charger from Wallbox (and the associated Power Recovery Unit, or PRU), a fully-charged Kia EV9 can power a standard suburban home for three days. Longer, still, if you’re keeping the energy use low. The Wallbox Quasar 2 isn’t cheap, though – pricing starts at $6,440 (again, plus installation). For that price, you the PRU plus a wall-mounted 12 kW L2 charger with 12.8 kW of with discharge power on a split-phase system.
Pretty much all the GM EVs
With the exception of the Chevy Brightdrop, GMC Hummer EV, and the hand-built, ultra-luxe Cadillac CELESTIQ, every Ultium-based GM EV can send battery power back to your home through GM Energy’s Ultium Home System – arguably the most fully integrated EV + battery backup + solar option out there outside of Tesla.
GM Energy says its new 19.2 kW Powershift Charger delivers around 6-7% more juice than a typical 11.5 kW L2 charger, delivering up to 51 miles of range per charge hour. Bi-directional charging requires the Powershift Charger to be paired up with a compatible GM EV and the GM Energy V2H Enablement Kit. The full system retails for $12,699, plus installation, and can be financed through GM Financial.
NOTE: some 2024 models might require a software update to enable V2H functionality, which can be done either at the dealer or through an OTA update.
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck owners may have zero taste, but they have two options when it comes to powering their homes with their trucks. If they already have a Tesla Powerwall, they don’t need anything else. If they don’t, they’ll need to install a Universal Wall Connector charger, a Powershare Gateway, and a Tesla Backup Switch.
That second option will run about $3,500, plus installation.
That rounds off the list of vehicles that ship with V2H software baked in, so if you’re wondering whether or not your EV can be used to power your home, now you know the answer is yes, as long as it’s one of the ones listed above.
But you might remember that I answered the initial question by saying it was either a yes, with a but – or a no, with an unless. So if you want to use your car’s battery as a backup, but don’t have one of the EVs liksted above, that doesn’t mean you’re completely out of luck.
No, with an unless
As some of the earliest and most enthusiastic EV adopters, Tesla fans have also been among the loudest advocates for using the energy stored their cars’ batteries to back up their homes — or even the grid itself. Unfortunately for them, the slow-selling Cybertruck is the only Tesla vehicle that officially supports bi-directional charging. If you’re one of the many Model 3 and Y owners frustrated by those delays, there’s good news: those vehicles are now capable of V2H charging thanks to an “impressive” Powerwall competitor, Sigenergy.
The good news doesn’t stop there, however. The Sigenergy V2X also works with both the popular Kia EV6 and Electrek‘s 2024 EV of the Year, the Volvo EX30 over the DIN70121 protocol, and several VW/Audi/Porsche and Mercedes-Benz EVs over the ISO15118-2 protocol.
Our own Editor-in-Chief, Fred Lambert, recently went on a Sigenergy deep dive with Sylvain Juteau, President of Roulez Electrique, and came away deeply impressed with the system. I’ve included the video, above, and you can read more about the system itself at this link.
And, of course, I look forward to learning about any V2H models or more universal battery backup systems from you, the smartest readers in the blogosphere, in the comments.
Original content from Electrek.
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Tesla has changed the meaning of “Full Self-Driving”, also known as “FSD”, to give up on its original promise of delivering unsupervised autonomy.
Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all its vehicles in production would be capable of achieving unsupervised self-driving capability.
CEO Elon Musk has claimed that it would happen by the end of every year since 2018.
Tesla has even sold a software package, known as “Full Self-Driving Capability” (FSD), for up to $15,000 to customers, promising that the advanced driver-assist system would become fully autonomous through over-the-air software updates.
Almost a decade later, the promise has yet to be fulfilled, and Tesla has already confirmed that all vehicles produced between 2016 and 2023 don’t have the proper hardware to deliver unsupervised self-driving as promised.
Musk has been discussing the upgrade of the computers in these vehicles to appease owners, but there’s no concrete plan to implement it.
While there’s no doubt that Tesla has promised unsupervised self-driving capabilities to FSD buyers between 2016 and 2023, the automaker has since updated its language and now only sells “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” to customers:
The fine print mentions that it doesn’t make the vehicle “autonomous” and doesn’t promise it as a feature.
In other words, people buying FSD today are not really buying the capability of unsupervised self-driving as prior buyers did.
Furthermore, Tesla’s board has just submitted a new, unprecedented CEO compensation package for shareholders’ approval, which could give Musk up to $1 trillion in stock options pending the achievement of certain milestones.
One of these milestones is Tesla having “10 Million Active FSD Subscriptions.”
At first glance, this would be hopeful for FSD buyers since part of Musk’s compensation would be dependent on delivering on the FSD promises.
However, Tesla has changed the definition of FSD in the compensation package with an extremely vague one”
“FSD” means an advanced driving system, regardless of the marketing name used, that is capable of performing transportation tasks that provide autonomous or similar functionality under specified driving conditions.
Tesla now considers FSD only an “advanced driving system” that should be “capable of performing transportation tasks that prove autonomous or similar functionality”.
The current version of FSD, which requires constant supervising by the driver, could easily fit that description.
Therefore, FSD now doesn’t come with the inital promise of Tesla owners being able to go to sleep in their vehicles and wake up at their destination – a promise that Musk has used to sell Tesla vehicles for years.
Electrek’s Take
The way Tesla discusses autonomy with customers and investors versus how it presents it in its court filings and legally binding documents is strikingly different.
It should be worrying to anyone with an interest in this.
With this very vague description in the new CEO compensation package, Tesla could literally lower the price of FSD and even remove base Autopilot to push customers toward FSD and give Musk hundreds of billions of dollars in shares in the process.
There’s precedent for Tesla decreasing pricing on FSD. Initially, Musk said that Tesla would gradually increase the price of the FSD package as the features improved and approached unsupervised autonomy.
That was true for a while, but then Tesla started slashing FSD prices, which are now down $7,000 from their high in 2023:
The trend is quite apparent and coincidentally began when Tesla’s sales started to decline.
FSD is now a simple ADAS system without any promise of unsupervised self-driving. This might quite honestly be one of the biggest cases of false advertising or bait-and-switch ever.
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