Talking about Solar Energy in 2023

Had been thinking about writing an article but have been busy. That was until this morning when what I thought was the start of a cold turned out to be something else. So after three years a tiny virus finally found me. I always was suspecting we weren't going to win a war against it.

So I put on a mask, sent a few texts and emails to let a few close contacts know and make some adjustments for the next few days. Then I found myself with time on my hands. Even got out of vacuuming the house today! Feels very different having had a total of four vaccine doses and rapid tests sitting ready to use than most of the journey for the last three years. I can remember some very dark days and months during this time, so it seemed appropriate that the sun was shining today. I escaped my office cell that my family has confined me to for the next while to take the dog for a walk, which is when I took the picture of the brilliant winter sun. I have a Murphy bed in my office, so it truly is like a cell where my "jailers" bring me food on occasion.

I normally work remotely so ironically I was probably exposed when I ventured out to a meeting relating to the topic of this article. I was talking with Moon Media and checking out a possible location for some vides they may produce for us. The working title at this point is "We need to talk about solar energy". So what is there to talk about? My observation is most of the talk about solar energy is about building new projects not on what happens afterwards. As a parent of four children that would be like saying you only need to worry about a child for the first year of their life after that they will do fine and focus on the next child.

That's why we need to talk about how do we ensure a long and productive life for the solar power systems we are building, not just anticipating and celebrating their birth. This painting hangs on my office wall. I think this was the first painting I drew when I was cofacilitated an art therapy group for female survivors of sexual abuse. I'm not an artist but they insisted I needed to draw, so I had to step out my comfort zone. The yellow stripes represent people alive today, the white those that have died. Those red vertical lines; well they are tragic events like Covid or the horror in Ukraine which snuff out far too many lives.

That painting sort of reminds me of the heatmaps we use in our software to show where systems have problems. The heatmap below is of a three year old system I started looking at this week as part of a pilot for a potential customer. The black line at the bottom is an inverter down for the whole month and red represents underproduction. Haven't confirmed yet but probably strings down but some will be shading. You can also see two inverters getting brought on line probably with a service call on the third day but one keeps failing afterwards.

So that's what we need to talk about in 2023. How do we make sure these systems that we are building perform well their entire lifespan. Each day of our life is unique, like a solar panel. We don't get a second chance to catch the sun for that day. So today is a good day and I needed to remember to enjoy the sun, my walk and my family as well as my positive test this morning. What are you celebrating today?

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller