I didn’t design or build the ground mount system at my home on the North Shore of Maui. It was done by a professional installer who left the solar business years ago. It looks improbably flimsy, but it’s held a double row of 32 Sanyo 250 watt panels for the last 13 years through several […]
A wimpy-looking Ground Mount System That withstands Hurricanes Read More »
A quick video to show the prettier part of my shop, which used to be a granite and marble cutting company (hence all the marble everywhere). This part was the showroom.
Pretty part of the Expert Amateur shop Read More »
The usual way to manage critical loads is to isolate them in a subpanel so that during an outage or other similar event you can power just that panel. That works more or less OK when you’re doing new construction, or you can easily access the wiring coming into your main panel. But if your
A Different Way To Manage Critical Loads Read More »
To mitigate wildfire risks for homes and businesses, a comprehensive strategy focusing on defensible space, structural hardening, and proactive maintenance is essential. I’ve developed a 10-step plan based on wildfire resilience best practices from fire safety organizations and mitigation experts. I’m not an expert at this–far from it–so the first thing I did was study
Wildfire Mitigation with Firewise Read More »
Update: Okay, at the end of this article I wrote “I don’t foresee major problems, which may say more about my foresight than how challenging the issue might be.” which turned out to be accurate. The pool recirculation pump and the salvaged piping isn’t up to the job. so I’m hiring a pro to install
Designing the Sprinkler System Read More »
A recent comment from Will Prowse about PV disconnect switches really turned a light on for me (pun intended). Especially since it contradicted some bad advice I’ve been giving people. He was saying, for lower current installations that a properly rated little polarized DC breaker makes a serviceable disconnect switch, as long as it’s ganged
Into the guts of disconnect switches Read More »
I didn’t really want to write this, but there is so much confusion about lightning protection I think I need to. Yay, an explainer video! I stole the cloud pictures (and corrected my faulty understanding of charge generation from Encylopedia Britannica. Wikipedia and web resources are cool, but Britannica is Britannica. Lightning starts off as
What is Lightning anyway, and why is it trying to destroy your solar power system Read More »
My recent video, “Solar Grounding and Bonding Demystified”, caused quite a stir. Will Prowse called it an awesome video, but lots of other folks commented that I didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s a controversial issue, and some folks think that if experts don’t agree on the solutions that they don’t need to
Preventing lightning damage to your solar Installation Read More »
If you already know all about legacy AC-coupled, grid-connected Solar power installations you might want to skip down to the paragraph titled “Planning for Upgrades” and avoid all the background stuff. A somewhat sardonic capsule history: Roof-mounted AC-coupled grid-connected PV systems are now considered legacy systems. Installed by companies at great expense for people who
Upgrading a Legacy Grid-tied, AC-coupled PV system Read More »
My experimental solar container is doing exactly what I intended it to do: Teach me how modern solar power systems work. I’m definitely drinking from a firehose, but there are some things that make me stop dead in my tracks that just don’t seem to make sense. RSD (Rapid Shutown Devices) and the requirements of
What’s with RSD? How can it even work? Read More »
