Effective January 2020 the state of California has mandated that all new residential construction (both single-family and multifamily, three stories or less) will require some level of photovoltaic (PV) installation, providing boundless opportunities for contractors and builders to take on new business. Now, with only a few short months remainingRead More

The quality of a solar installation has many parameters. One frequently underevaluated aspect is a compliant roof attachment. Load calculations that determine the number and spacing of attachment points prescribe not only the length of lag screws that must enter structural members but also their edge distance or the effectiveRead More

The two most common approaches to mounting PV arrays on tile roofs are “standoff” posts and tile hooks. Standoff posts tend to be stronger due to their simple column loading design, while tile hooks use a cantilevered loading configuration (think diving board), which deflects under wind and snow loading. ARead More

According to a recent study by SolarPower Europe, new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed worldwide in 2016 reached more than 76 gigawatts. This was largely due to dramatic growth led by the United States and China, with both countries almost doubling the amount of solar added from 2015. Globally thereRead More

While inverter oversizing is not new to the solar industry, there are still inverter manufacturers that do not offer an attractive DC:AC ratio for their inverters. This highly impacts cost and profitability of a solar system. Therefore, it’s important for system designers and solar installers to have a closer lookRead More