Wrenches:
This approach is emblematic of the cheapening of the solar industry. If a contractor cannot be bothered to get on a roof to provide an accurate assessment of the site, I wonder if they will be honest if it turns out there are shading or other issues not anticipated? The entry level installer will never notice shading problems. If there are undocumented shading issues, the consumer may never know they are being cheated out of some of the return on their investment. This is true also about the condition of the roof and electrical infrastructure. We have seen the contracts offered by some of our competition. They get the job by low-balling estimates and then make up the difference by contract “adders.” I believe that at some point a competent professional needs to get out of the office and in the field to evaluate each and every job before the contract is offered or the customer suffers. I caution consumers: if no one looked carefully at your roof and your electrical then you are not dealing with a reputable contractor. William Miller PS: The Pathfinder is still a reliable, accurate alternative. If you apply the values on the chart to a model adjusted for pitch, azimuth and local insolation you can get very accurate values for shading. Those who can create a spreadsheet tool will find the results can be tabulated in short order. Wm [image: Gradient Cap_mini] Lic 773985 millersolar.com <http://www.millersolar.com/> 805-438-5600 *From:* RE-wrenches [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Andrew Truitt *Sent:* Monday, March 07, 2016 12:30 PM *To:* RE-wrenches *Subject:* Re: [RE-wrenches] Successor to SunEye 210? I think the fact that no manufacturer has jumped in to fill the void left by the SunEye is an indicator that remote shade analysis tools like Aurora (my favorite) are the likely path forward for the industry. These tools can typically make it possible to generate a full rendering and shade analysis in less than 15 minutes for the experienced user, without ever having to get on a roof. NREL did some validation studies (here's Aurora's <http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65558.pdf>) and found a few tools to produce results as good or better than the SunEye, which makes sense to me since the analysis is based on an integral over the whole roof surface as opposed to a few point measurements. Of course the "garbage in, garbage out" principle is very applicable. For a brighter energy future, Andrew Truitt Principal Truitt Renewable Energy Consulting, LLC (202) 486-7507 LinkedIn Profile <https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtruitt> Company Website <http://truittreconsulting.weebly.com/> NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional ID: 032407-66 Colorado Journeyman Electrician License No.: 600132 [image: 24 copy.jpg] "Don't get me wrong: I love nuclear energy! It's just that I prefer fusion to fission. And it just so happens that there's an enormous fusion reactor safely banked a few million miles from us. It delivers more than we could ever use in just about 8 minutes. And it's wireless!" ~William McDonough On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 12:56 PM, Dan Fink <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Peter; My understanding is that the only thing left of Solmetric at Vivint is the PV Analyzer, and though they stated a year ago that they were going to "streamline" the PV sales process so that the site survey could be accomplished on the same day as the sale, I've seen nothing else from them. Very happy that I've kept the heavily-modded Solar Pathfinder that I bought in 1994, with a real tripod adaptor. For quicky site surveys and semi-interested customers, I use an Android smartphone app, which is pretty accurate IF you build a tripod adaptor for the phone. I'm surprised someone hasn't leapt in to claim this market share. Not all of us are big-city no-battery PV installers who can use the new Google tool that estimates tree heights. My class experiments with this were a bust....it only sorta kinda works. Ground truth is the only thing I trust. Maybe I should just start building and marketing my Pathfinder and smartphone tripod adaptors. Dan Fink Adjunct Professor, Ecotech Institute IREC Certified Instructor™ for: ~ PV Installation Professional ~ Small Wind Installer Executive Director, Buckville Energy NABCEP Accredited Continuing Education Providers™ 970.672.4342 On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Peter Parrish < [email protected]> wrote: Can’t seem to find a SunEye product on the Solmetric website. Is it tucked away on the Vivent site or somewhere else hard-to-find? Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D. President, SolarGnosis 1107 Fair Oaks Ave. Suite 351 South Pasadena, CA 91030 (323) 839-6108 [email protected] _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org
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