What Is a Ground Fault in a Solar System and Why Does It Matter? Ground faults are one of the more serious safety hazards in a PV installation. Understanding what causes them and what can go wrong is essential knowledge for anyone working on solar arrays. Janet Hughes has reviewed thousands of solar installations… Continue reading “What Is a Ground Fault in a Solar System and Why Does It Matter?”
New Course: Quality Fundamentals for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) Quality teams that cut their teeth on utility-scale PV are now being handed battery storage scope too. The inspection habits that work on tracker rows don’t carry over cleanly, because the defects that cost the most on a battery project… Continue reading “New Course: Quality Fundamentals for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)”
Why Wire Management Is Still the Most Common Deficiency in Solar Installations The solar industry has grown fast, and that growth comes with a tradeoff. Contractors are under pressure to hire quickly and get people productive on the job site before they’ve had all the training they need. The result shows up… Continue reading “Why Wire Management Is Still the Most Common Deficiency in Solar Installations”
A Quality Defect Today Is a Safety Hazard Tomorrow on a Solar Site A lot of sites treat quality and safety like two separate departments, two different clipboards, two different inspectors walking the same row looking for different things. HeatSpring instructor Julie Stiglish thinks that split is part of the problem. In this… Continue reading “A Quality Defect Today Is a Safety Hazard Tomorrow on a Solar Site”
What Solar Manufacturing Can Teach the Job Site About Quality Most people who move into quality management learn it on the construction side, catching problems after they’re already built. HeatSpring instructor Julie Stiglish learned it from the other direction first. Before she was walking utility-scale sites as a quality leader,… Continue reading “What Solar Manufacturing Can Teach the Job Site About Quality”
Going From Electrician to Quality Leader: Julie Stiglish’s Path Into QA/QC Julie Stiglish’s path into quality and safety leadership didn’t start in a classroom or a compliance office. It started in the heat of a Las Vegas summer, wiring up casinos as a journeyman electrician, learning what it actually feels like… Continue reading “Going From Electrician to Quality Leader: Julie Stiglish’s Path Into QA/QC”
12 Moments When Utility-Scale Solar Quality Gets Decided Every utility-scale solar project is full of moments where a defect is cheap to catch and later moments where the same defect can cost ten times as much to fix. It turns out that many quality problems on a solar… Continue reading “12 Moments When Utility-Scale Solar Quality Gets Decided”
STC, NOCT, and NMOT: Sean White Decodes Test Conditions Used on the PV Module Datasheet Every PV module datasheet lists numbers like open-circuit voltage (VOC), max power voltage (VMP), and short-circuit current (ISC), but a module rarely actually operates at any of them. Differences in temperature and sunlight cause voltage and current to skew one… Continue reading “STC, NOCT, and NMOT: Sean White Decodes Test Conditions Used on the PV Module Datasheet”
What’s ASCE 7? Sean White on Calculating Wind, Snow, and Structural Loads When it comes to snow loads, wind loads, and other structural forces on a building, the International Code Council (ICC) codes give you a general framework. To run the actual calculations, like sizing a beam for a specific roof slope,… Continue reading “What’s ASCE 7? Sean White on Calculating Wind, Snow, and Structural Loads”
New Course: Utility-Scale Solar QA/QC Fundamentals Julie Stiglish opens her new course with a story straight out of her own field experience: somewhere on a utility-scale site right now, a two-dollar defect is being installed. Nobody’s doing it on purpose. The crew is good, the weather’s… Continue reading “New Course: Utility-Scale Solar QA/QC Fundamentals”
Maximum Voltage vs. Peak Voltage: Sean White on Energy Storage System Wire Sizing When you’re sizing wire for an energy storage system, the number you need isn’t the highest voltage the system could ever produce. Instead, it’s a specific, defined value called maximum voltage. In the National Electrical Code Article 706.9, maximum voltage… Continue reading “Maximum Voltage vs. Peak Voltage: Sean White on Energy Storage System Wire Sizing”
Ladder Safety with Sean White Falls are one of the most common hazards on a job site, and ladders are often part of that risk, especially on residential solar installs where you’re going up onto a pitched roof. A few specific practices can go a… Continue reading “Ladder Safety with Sean White”
HeatSpring is the Official PVA & OMAT Training Provider for the 2027 NABCEP Conference We just signed on to be the official PVA & OMAT training provider for the 2027 NABCEP Conference. Sean White is teaching the class. Learners spend three days together at the conference training with Sean. They also get access to… Continue reading “HeatSpring is the Official PVA & OMAT Training Provider for the 2027 NABCEP Conference”
How to Properly Fit a Fall Protection Harness In the hierarchy of fall protection, PPE, sits near the bottom, not the top. Elimination – removing the fall hazard entirely – is always the first line of defense, followed by passive systems, travel restraint, and only then fall arrest.… Continue reading “How to Properly Fit a Fall Protection Harness “
New Course: Competent Person Fall Protection Training Falls are the number one cause of death in construction and almost every one of them is preventable. That’s the reason this course exists. HeatSpring’s new Competent Person Fall Protection Training, taught by instructor Jenny Conrardy, is now live, and… Continue reading “New Course: Competent Person Fall Protection Training”
New Free Course: 10 Utility-Scale Solar Defects Hiding in Plain Sight Every defect in utility-scale solar construction is cheap exactly once – at the moment it’s installed. After that, the price goes up. A missed refusal on a pile drive log, a connector that “clicked, sort of,” a bonding clamp that… Continue reading “New Free Course: 10 Utility-Scale Solar Defects Hiding in Plain Sight”
How Standards Harmonization Is Making Energy Storage Easier to Permit and Inspect Article 706 on energy storage systems didn’t undergo sweeping changes in the 2026 NEC, but what did shift is worth noting, especially for anyone who has found the permitting and inspection side of ESS work frustrating. Rebekah Hren of Solar… Continue reading “How Standards Harmonization Is Making Energy Storage Easier to Permit and Inspect”
Power Control Systems Just Made Load Calculations a Lot Less Painful Doing load calculations can be a bit of a slog. Adding up the water heater, the dishwasher, the EV charger, and all the other loads, then working through the math for branch circuits, feeders, and services – it’s typically not… Continue reading “Power Control Systems Just Made Load Calculations a Lot Less Painful”
What Is a Power Control System (PCS) and Why Does It Matter for Solar and Storage Installers? Power control systems are showing up more and more in solar, storage, and electrical infrastructure, but some practitioners haven’t encountered the term yet. Brian Mehalic breaks down what a PCS actually is and why it’s worth understanding now. Essentially, a… Continue reading “What Is a Power Control System (PCS) and Why Does It Matter for Solar and Storage Installers?”
The 2029 NEC Is Going to Look Very Different. Here’s What’s Coming. The 2026 National Electrical Code (NEC) revision cycle has come and gone, but the work of the code-making panels never really stops. The 2029 cycle is already well underway, public inputs have been submitted, and task groups are working through… Continue reading “The 2029 NEC Is Going to Look Very Different. Here’s What’s Coming.”