Continued from – Inexperienced “Solar Installers” Have No Clue! (part 1)
After a few years of experience every installer should know better, however it is becoming apparent that some installers are missing basic design concepts. Systems must be designed and installed properly in order for them to last and produce the power they are supposed to. The following images were found on actual Louisiana “solar installers” websites showing all the world how bad they are.
The first thing you learn is shade is the enemy to avoid at all costs.
Partial shading can greatly affect power production so when sunny spots are available you need to use them.
Don’t do what this installer did.
You should install higher, away from the east and west roofs that will shade this array morning and afternoon.
The next thing you learn is if you install solar in complete shade it will not work at all.
These poor homeowners won’t be getting much solar power from their installation.
From where I’m looking, the only thing getting sunshine is the poor installers who are too dumb to sit in the shade!
There should be laws against this level of stupidy.
When you first start learning about solar you learn to watch out for chimneys that will shade from the side.
In this case they could move the modules away from the shadows, especially when there is plenty of sunny roof available. From where I’m looking the entire bottom row could have been moved over to avoid the chimney shade. One module shaded will pull the whole string down. Since they appear to be amateurs, they probably used plug-and-play microinverters so only the ones shaded wont produce. But still it shouldn’t be done.
This one is funny. The photographer/installer should easily see the shaded module. One half of it is in complete shade at this time of day. Why, with a full open roof, would you put the modules in the shade? They are cheating the customer out of solar power they paid for and now, will not get. This affects their payback and return on investment. If they are this stupid on the most basic of solar, I wonder what else is wrong that I can’t see. Will it cause a fire or electrocute somebody? I certainly hope not.
Please call us at Gulf South Solar, 225-932-0035, or email us at info@gulfsouthsolar.com.
Thanks – Jeff Shaw