Two Habits Every New Solar Installer Should Build From Day One Solar installation is physical, technical work with real consequences when things go wrong. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of solar PV installers to grow 37 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations.… Continue reading “Two Habits Every New Solar Installer Should Build From Day One”
Three Reasons Solar Breaks the 1-10-100 Quality Rule The 1-10-100 rule is a quality management concept that’s been around for a long time, and it’s a shorthand for what a defect costs at each stage. Preventing a problem costs one unit. Fixing it before it leaves your hands… Continue reading “Three Reasons Solar Breaks the 1-10-100 Quality Rule”
Vehicle-to-Grid Is Here. Here’s Where the NEC Stands on Bidirectional EV Charging. Vehicle-to-grid and bidirectional EV charging have been on the industry’s radar for years. HeatSpring instructor Alex Jahp shares a look at where things actually stand in the 2026 NEC. The short answer is that Article 625 didn’t see major changes… Continue reading “Vehicle-to-Grid Is Here. Here’s Where the NEC Stands on Bidirectional EV Charging.”
What a Bad Connector Costs: Day One vs. Year Three On a utility-scale solar project, a partially mated connector takes a few seconds to fix on install day. The installer doesn’t hear the click, so they push it until it locks or reseat it. Three years later, that same connector… Continue reading “What a Bad Connector Costs: Day One vs. Year Three”
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?”
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”
What’s New in the “Inside the Solar Executive MBA Data Room” Course The original Solar Executive MBA launched in 2012, and it was genuinely ahead of its time. There wasn’t anything else in the industry teaching solar development that way. Now Keith Cronin is bringing that same spirit of innovation to a… Continue reading “What’s New in the “Inside the Solar Executive MBA Data Room” Course”
What Is a Solar Service Agreement (SSA)? Not every offtake structure looks the same once you leave the standard PPA framework, and state rules can change how a project is structured. We asked Keith Cronin, instructor of Inside the Solar Executive MBA Data Room, to explain what… Continue reading “What Is a Solar Service Agreement (SSA)?”
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”
What’s the Most Common Fall Hazard Mistake – Even Among Experienced Installers? Ask any safety professional what worries them most, and the answer is rarely a hazard workers don’t recognize. It’s the shortcut they know is risky and do anyway. In this Q&A from our Competent Person Fall Protection Training course, Josh… Continue reading “What’s the Most Common Fall Hazard Mistake – Even Among Experienced Installers? “
Development Service Agreement vs. Membership Interest Purchase Agreement, Explained Solar deals eventually require ownership to change hands, whether a project gets assigned to a developer through a development service agreement (DSA) or an asset gets sold outright through a membership interest purchase agreement (MIPA). We asked Keith Cronin, instructor… Continue reading “Development Service Agreement vs. Membership Interest Purchase Agreement, Explained”
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”
What the O&M Agreement Covers and Why It’s Tied to Your Financial Model Solar assets need decades of upkeep, and that responsibility needs to be spelled out in the O&M agreement. Skipped infrared testing and visual inspections, excessive panel soiling, or an inverter failure without a response plan in place are just a… Continue reading “What the O&M Agreement Covers and Why It’s Tied to Your Financial Model”
Clawbacks & Milestones: Notable Solar EPC Agreement Clauses The EPC agreement governs the actual construction of a solar project, and two parts in particular can cause problems for developers as projects slip: clawback clauses tied to completion deadlines, and the milestone payment structure that governs how money moves… Continue reading “Clawbacks & Milestones: Notable Solar EPC Agreement Clauses”
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”
Volts, Amps, Ohms, Watts: Sean White on Ohm’s Law and How to Measure Each One Ohm’s Law describes the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in an electrical circuit: voltage equals current multiplied by resistance (V = IR). Pair that with the power equation – power equals current multiplied by voltage (P = IV) –… Continue reading “Volts, Amps, Ohms, Watts: Sean White on Ohm’s Law and How to Measure Each One”
Undefined Terms Can Have Real Consequences: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the NEC Code-Making Process There are words in the National Electrical Code that practitioners use every day without a second thought. “Backfeed” is one of them. What emerged during a Code-Making Panel 4 meeting in the 2026 NEC revision cycle is that even the… Continue reading “Undefined Terms Can Have Real Consequences: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the NEC Code-Making Process”