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”
Why Flagging Is More Dangerous Than It Looks At first glance, it may feel easy to assume a flagger’s job is simple. They’re just standing in a high-vis vest, holding a sign, and directing a few cars, right? Actually, that couldn’t be further from the truth. As Jacob… Continue reading “Why Flagging Is More Dangerous Than It Looks”
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.”
Why Neutral and Ground Bond Only Once Neutral and ground get bonded together at the main service panel, and nowhere else. Leave the bonding screw in at a subpanel and everything still seems to work. The lights come on and the appliances run. So why does the… Continue reading “Why Neutral and Ground Bond Only Once”
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 Transformer, and Why Does It Only Work With AC? Transformers were one of the late-1800s developments that made our alternating current (AC) power system possible, and you’ll still find them at nearly every stage of the grid today. A step-up transformer at a generating plant raises the voltage to… Continue reading “What Is a Transformer, and Why Does It Only Work With AC?”
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 Battery Storage Quality Fails Differently Than Solar | New BESS Course 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 “Why Battery Storage Quality Fails Differently Than Solar | New BESS Course”
What Fails First in a Solar System? Sean White on Equipment Lifespan When you’re doing O&M on a solar system, sooner or later something’s going to fail – the question is what. Is it more likely to be the PV module, the racking, the electronics like inverters, or something like a combiner… Continue reading “What Fails First in a Solar System? Sean White on Equipment Lifespan”
New Course: Materials Handling Safety Every construction project runs on materials. Lumber, block, conduit, racking, pallets of modules, cases of sealant: all of it gets lifted, moved, stacked, stored, and eventually hauled away. That work happens so often on a jobsite that it’s easy to… Continue reading “New Course: Materials Handling Safety”
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”
Safety Pro – A New Badge for Jobsite Safety Fundamentals We just added a new badge to the Pro library: Safety Pro. It’s a bundle of four courses that each address a distinct and common jobsite hazard — material handling, falls, electrical work, and heavy equipment operation. It’s a broadly… Continue reading “Safety Pro – A New Badge for Jobsite Safety Fundamentals”
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”
New Course: Excavation Safety Training Excavation work is unpredictable by nature. Soil, water, and site conditions shift throughout a project, and the crews who stay safe are the ones trained to catch those changes before they become emergencies. HeatSpring’s new Excavation Safety Training course, taught… Continue reading “New Course: Excavation Safety Training”
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”