Another long day, but got the second array structure up!👍
A Day in the Life of an Off-Grid Solar Installer
This is our project journal — field stories from off-grid solar installs around Northern Arizona. The 4 a.m. starts, the parts that don't show up, the problems solved on the fly, and a behind-the-scenes look at how these systems actually get built — plus a bit of life on the fringe along the way. Originally posted on the River Daves Place forum; you can read the full thread here.
These are big boy panels.
These are big boy panels. Commercial 545 watts each. They are just big enough and just heavy enough to be a pain in the ass. 😄😄🙄 We had some decent cloud cover yesterday-but it disappeared around noon, and record highs,...
By 10 this morning we had about 3/4 of the panels on the first array bolted down.
And by then the sun was already giving us a good beat down with its intense rays. Just a few minutes shy of 11 we got the last panel on the first array installed and not a moment too soon...Continue reading
By sundown on Tuesday evening, we were back out at the array site.
Here is the first array of 45 panels all assembled. The last light of day had pretty pastel colors as we went to work installing the rails on the second array. Around 9 PM we had the last of the...
As the night gave way to day, we continued laying down the big panels.
By the time the sun was doing chin up over the eastern mountains, we were about 2/3 rds of the way done, cranking right along, and someone was feeling spicy. 😄😄 Right at 9am we finished bolting down the last...
Welcome back to night ops at Camp DRE in BFE.
We got to the job site late this morning and took care of a bunch of administrative stuff. But the midday temperatures were hitting 100 and the sun was intense, so we took a nap and resumed work around 6pm....Continue reading
We got back in action around 3am.
Denise worked on wiring up the panels and made quick work of getting them looking nice and neat. Each array has three strings of 15 panels each-these are high voltage circuits with each string being in the 1000 volt range....
Some of Denise’s nice neat PV wiring.
👍 And the first set of disconnects are ready to be wired. ⚡️
We are big into finding tools and techniques that make our job easier and/or faster.
We have quite the collection of specialized tools that allow us to punch above our weight as a two person crew. Additionally, anything we can to help us physically we are typically all for. We aren’t in bad shape, but...Continue reading
A couple pictures from this morning.
We finished up the array wiring here, and we are packing up to take care of some things elsewhere. We will return in two weeks for the next phase of construction-which should also be pretty cool! Brought down the Well...Continue reading