Aaron talks with Annalisa Farrell, a solar data and monitoring specialist.

Annalisa has spent years troubleshooting the gap between how solar energy systems are modeled to perform and how they actually behave in the field.

Expect to learn:

* Where the industry’s biggest education gaps are, from electricity bills and performance expectations to who is actually responsible when something breaks.

* What happens when hardware, software and finance teams “speak different languages” about the same solar energy system (spoilers, it’s massive confusion).

* Why compassion, clear expectation setting, and real-world experiences matter more than slick marketing.

Quotes from the episode:

“We have software people, hardware people and finance people. They all see the same site through completely different lenses, and the confusion often lives in those gaps.”

- Annalisa Farrell

“If we want solar to be truly sustainable, we should be learning from nature. The earth has already figured out how to live on sunlight.”

- Annalisa Farrell

Transcript:

Aaron Nichols:Hello everyone and welcome back to this week in solar. As always, I’m your host Aaron Nichols, the Research and Policy Specialist here at exact solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania.Yes. And today we are interviewing someone that makes me feel validated that I’m always hammering on we don’t have enough education in the industry.I’ve seen her content on LinkedIn and I’m glad that I’m finally getting to talk to her. It’s Annalisa Farrell, ladies and gentlemen.Annalisa, if you would like to just introduce yourself and talk a bit more about your background in the solar industry?

Annalisa Farrell:Yeah, it’s great to be here, Aaron. Thank you so much. I’ve been in the solar industry for I think coming up on six years now I started right before the pandemic started and in a former role I got to do a lot of the troubleshooting on the data and so being involved in the data monitoring side of things I was involved in a lot of the troubleshooting that happened in between software and the end point of that hardware information collection.So we all know that we’ve got all of those pieces of hardware that are out there in the field, we’ve got those inverters, we’ve got the modules, we’ve got all of these different components out there that all need to be monitored in some way, shape or form to allow us to take that data and make it into something more meaningful for not only, the people that are getting the information, but the wider array of places that that information goes.So in this former role, I was at a company called also Energy and I was there tier two support technician.And that’s how I got started in this industry was doing all of the troubleshooting. So it was a variety of issues that would come in and not to get too into detail there.But it was a lot of fun to see all of the different ways that we could see different sites that were unique and how those different sites that were unique could present different problems.And getting into the industry at that tier two entry level was just the biggest blessing. I started out not really knowing where I was going to go with a sustainability degree, so I knew that I loved the environment, the three pillars of sustainability, the equitable decision making, the environment, and then obviously the economy piece in there as well. So those three pillars, how those were contributing, wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, got into the solar industry through a support role and that support role harnessed a lot of the hardware aspects that we have issues with onsite in addition to all of the software issues that can associate that and then from there in addition to starting out in that role took it into a variety of different places and got to explore a lot more of the solar industry through different roles that taken on and all of which was so much fun to just learn about and I think I’ve got just so much information as to how we understand that data that’s coming in from the hardware where that goes and then how people are going to use it in all of the different ways that people need to utilize that data and all of the areas that data can cost some heartaches for folks and how we can remedy these issues because it gets into the weeds and this is a niche industry and I think that was the reason I got so excited about it was that it is niche, it’s new, it’s exciting people, are trying to discover what the industry standard is daily.What is the industry standard on how we’re going to handle X protocol for X type of site that nobody’s ever seen before with hardware that just came on the market that it’s just all of the different unique situations that come up and all of that were definitely just the most fun to get into of the industry with and then be able to troubleshoot and problem solve in different ways. So I think that’s a little bit about the background and it’s so thrilled to be here.Thank you so much, this is wonderful.

Aaron Nichols:Thank you, yeah, it’s so funny how so many people get here. It seems like you blindly stumbled in just like I did.But then you come for the first job and you stay for the people, like there’s so many amazing people in the solar industry and it sounds like you’re really enjoying the what I call nerd whispering where you take the data and then you talk to the technical minded people who are creating things and driving the industry forward and then you kind of translate that to a wider audience and teach them how to actually understand what it is.

Annalisa Farrell:Exactly and then yeah and it depends I think the thing even with the stumble into the industry, even if you stumble, it’s kind of like you get, an offshoot of something and all of a sudden that’s the thing that you have knowledge on.You just worked into it and it’s fun to through all of my past roles and different experiences. It’s been interesting to see through the different levels of companies where people would come in with different types of questions.So I would say that even where people are stumbling into the industry at all levels, it’s so interesting to see all of the different.I don’t want to say education gaps, but perhaps the education that’s still coming out that still is being made aware to everyone.So it’s definitely fun to see all of that.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, it’s never ceases to amaze me. This is something I joke about all the time.How everything is a deep rabbit hole. No matter what you get into, there’s just people who are intense about it.That’s their whole lives, and that doesn’t matter if it’s solar energy, or if it’s knitting, there’s someone who is just insane about it.

Annalisa Farrell:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love it. I love that I keep finding that. It’s like sourdough bread is like that.I think there are so many different systems that are in place that have to work together. And I think the sustainability degree that I got at Colorado Mountain College was a huge part of my understanding for solar because when I came into right that first role, getting all of these different problems.It seemed like there was no logic to the system that I was understanding. And then once you get into the different types of rates that people are interested in how financial reporting works into different situations, which types of people are interested in which pieces of information are we more interested in revenue grade meters? Are we more interested in the inverter level? Who’s troubleshooting what? For what reason? And you just dive in.Again, like you He said to all of those different rabbit holes, but I think with the systems of it, once you start getting into, okay, the software system already existed, right?People were already using the internet, people were already using this framework of software. Software existed, right? Software existed and then hardware already existed, but not in the fashion that we’re connecting it to hardware.So the connection point, I feel like is something that’s been unique to watch people learn how to monitor sites and going through different monitoring protocols.What different companies think are important to some extent. It has been fascinating that it’s still evolving as well with different error codes on in borders.Like, what does this one mean? Will we talk to a different manufacturer that has a different error code meaning for different problems?How do we, harmonize language, I think throughout the industry as well in addition to our abundance of acronyms.

Aaron Nichols:Well, I would love to talk about translating all of that information to the wider public.I think you mentioned before we started recording that you’ve worked to educate a lot of homeowners who actually didn’t even realize that operations and maintenance were part of owning a solar energy system.I’m interested in how those conversations have gone and also why you think there’s is such a knowledge gap there that needed to be addressed.

Annalisa Farrell:I wouldn’t even say it’s primarily with homeowners. That was certainly an aspect of parts of my past roles. It was, I think, the most vulnerable that I’ve seen someone in the solar industry genuinely asking for help as compared to when we get into more commercial and utility conversations, those types of calls, someone’s in it, it’s a job. it’s part of the day-to-day. They at least have an experience and understanding if you’re in that job calling into that role, kind of, or calling into request assistance.In comparison, a homeowner having minimal experience, not really understanding any part of the solar industry, they’re calling in for assistance based on the, how do we put this politely?The reality television show that is the solar industry with all of the name changes and it’s all over the place.There are so many different things happening all of the time in this industry, but it does keep it very interesting.For a homeowner to have absolutely no idea, hey, I need a solar O&M company. Someone came to me, I have this system.It’s installed on my roof. I can see that I should be getting X amount of dollars that were assured to me by X Individual, backed by X company.And now I, the homeowner, hypothetically, in their call coming in, are saying, I have this. I’m not seeing this dollar about coming in.Something is wrong here. Lo and behold, they find out that perhaps that company has gone out of business due to the volatility of the market.And again, as I’ve kind of noted the reality TV show of it, so the volatility of the market, perhaps that company’s gone out of business, that homeowner has no idea what’s going on.And from there, it’s you need to Google a solar O&M company in your zip code to find out how somebody can get out there to resolve the issues that are happening at your site because I can see that in the data.I can’t, I can see that you’re not getting that on your bill. And from there, that leads to the confusion, the panic.I don’t know what’s going on. I can see that I was assured these dollars. It’s not offsetting. I had their plans for this.And to see someone at that moment in their most vulnerable moment, trying to say, I need help. I’ve called all of the members.Somebody, nobody’s getting back to me. Please leave me the time of day. I need some compassion, some empathy, the talk me through this.What can you tell me? And so sometimes I feel like it was just going through the information with someone and ensuring them, hey, you’re at this address.Yes, I’m at that address. Fantastic. This is great. I’m so happy that you’re at that address. You know, start giving people yes questions.And your name is yes. Oh, this is great. I see this is your email address. Is that yes? Okay. Cool.So it’s like I can go through certain pieces of information. reassure someone, give them all of the steps, and yes, let me empower you to do a Google search to look for solar, O&M, plus your zip code.Let’s get you on your way. Because, you know, in that point of view, from the data monitoring aspect of it, and particularly in analysis, you can’t help somebody through that because it’s their contract, and that’s a different system that’s operating within the solar industry as a whole.And that’s one piece of it that can simply get really tricky. Really tricky, really fast.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, and that’s something that we, as a company who’s been around for 20 years, we have such an uphill battle to fight because there’s, there’s just so many companies that have come in, over-promised, built a system and then gone out of business or disappeared and left a homeowner just kind of holding the bag.And that’s why we always have to encourage homeowners. you should go with someone local who’s been doing it a long time who’s going to treat your home well because if you just go with the bargain basement price and you don’t do a lot of research, I mean it’s very likely, but very possible that they’re not going to build the system to actually be durable for 25 years.And to get into that system then is, okay, we have the system that’s operating itself, right, as that thing, you know, connecting to the grid person’s home or, you know, you get into a commercial space utility space, how all of that is operating in the care, the quality is something that is the most important that efficiency, the quality and I think for this industry to continue to thrive. It is that diversity through all of the different teams checking in saying okay We’ve got one person monitoring. We’re making sure that we’re monitoring that we’ve got preventative maintenance kind of checks We’ve got the correct it like that those are standard throughout the industry and yet there still seems to be a question of Quality of work throughout the industry is kind of of the barrier I think we’re all trying to overcome to see where there is quality work as compared to where there is room to improve or to educate and to understand why someone wouldn’t have the time to do quality work and understanding the larger demand of the solar industry is huge right now.Like it seems like the business continues just to thrive personal opinion. It seems as though the business is dry or business industry is thriving and it’s nice to see that as people are continuing to invest in solar energy, it’s that okay, there’s still a demand and need for people in this industry and quality people, and do people have enough time to get to those sites? Do we have enough time for it?You know, what’s the quality scheduling? I think mindfulness truly is the theory there that quality scheduling giving people enough time to do the work with proper education to ensure that we get that best data and then from there can ensure the actual versus expected model data through estimates that have been assured to all parties throughout the industry if that makes sense.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, of course. And I think that comes down to incentives at the end of the day.I mean, what are the incentives for someone to do a great job? And if a company has been around for a long time and they have good reviews.That means that, they, the only way they continue to stay in business is by doing the right thing by homeowners.I think homeowners and even for the whole solar industry, I would say for homeowners. Well, you also mentioned that you’ve worked with executives who didn’t understand the way solar hardware and software work together.What did you mean when you said that? That’s called anybody out. We’re not pouring all of it to you. But it’s been examples in which I would say there is a value that someone has seen.

Annalisa Farrell:That’s called anybody out. We’re not pouring all of it to you. But it’s been examples in which I would say there is a value that someone has seen.And it goes, you know, as we know, the solar industry is well-based within the finance industry and that that’s something, you know, there’s publicly traded companies here.and it’s nice to see that it’s at that level of involvement, but then that also means right, we had the software people that it existed doing software things.They knew their network setups, they knew software, they do software stuff. We have hardware people, they do hardware stuff, we knew that hardware people existed.That connection, that melding is already something that is at questionable, like we’re already struggling through that point sometimes. and then de-factoring in addition to that finance world, also already existed in the finance world, likes to play in hardware and software.So you bring these three systems together with different languages, different ways of understanding one another and getting into the points of software person has issue with hardware person equals finance person sees number.When the finance person, you know, we’re the executive, the person who’s looking at how are we performing? Why am I not seeing these metrics?allowing the success I want to see. I know that my team is working hard. I’m not seeing the success that I want to see represented.Why is that happening? And sometimes it can come down to small system errors, you know, the way that communication is happening between two pieces of hardware or software.Or there was a glitch where an inverter wasn’t producing, but the meter was. And And how can how do those two things interact equaling something that’s ending up on someone’s desk that is not necessarily involved in the in the day to day operations, but still wants to be involved to get this piece.And so to that extent, I would say that there are also metrics that are being utilized that sometimes maybe aren’t the best indicators to how the site is performing, right?So we have our estimates which are giving us how the site should produce, that’s what we’re selling to the homeowners, that’s what we’re pitching to people, you know, here’s what it could produce.This is the estimate of the system. And then once the site actually starts producing, we get into the actual production values in addition to the expected production values, how those two match up to the estimate, etc. are up.And when those metrics are calculated, there are different pieces that go into the software that have to be represented by the hardware.And those two pieces, it’s like a mystery. I feel like if anything, I would be a puzzler because I constantly enjoy going down those rabbit holes and figuring out which which which nuance piece did somebody miss here that it was it in the modeling that we missed this number was it in was it a piece of hardware on site that didn’t have the right wiring configure, you know, what are we looking at here? How did how is someone fussy about why this number doesn’t look right?And then to follow that question, are we looking at the actual versus expected numbers, a predicted estimate, what language are we using there?A first question, and then to follow that up, is that even a good number for us to look at? Because I feel like availability has been a number that has Availability has been in the industry for a minute, and my absolute beef with availability is that there are so many different ways to calculate it, and if you have so many different ways to calculate availability, that everybody could do a different.And there’s just, For anyone who’s listening who’s not in the industry, it doesn’t know what that is.What is availability? Availability is a metric that is derived from the pieces of hardware that are on site. So we have our modules, which generally are not monitored, however, there are companies out there that do monitor modules, and you can get into individual module panel.You can monitor those. You can get into that level of monitoring. In addition to that, you can get all the way out into a more removed level of monitoring, which you’d be only looking at the meter.So if you’ve got the module you’ve got the panel those rows of panels then I’ll go into an inverter the inverter right We know it’s taking our direct current turning it into all treating current or then getting that to the grid Depending on the system layout could be any number of however somebody wants to look at it and then from there Excuse me from there right We’ve got the inverters that then are taking that information up to a revenue grade meter revenue grade meter hypothetically sending all of that information out again depending on system setup.So availability is looking at all of the pieces that are on site and saying how often were you available to produce energy.And there are different ways that you can say how available were you to produce energy. I’m so sorry, I’m going to call.

Aaron Nichols:That’s okay. I can edit it. No worries. Go for it.

Annalisa Farrell:Thank you. Oh my goodness. I appreciate that. Yeah. I’ve been rambling and I apologize.

Aaron Nichols:That’s okay. Let me think about how we can bring this home. So obviously, all of this is so complex. I mean, there’s so many things here that the average person just doesn’t understand.I’m finding that to be so true when it comes to electricity generation, electricity distribution, how electricity is made and how it gets to your house.There’s so many people who don’t even understand how their electricity bill actually works when we’re talking to homeowners. So, where do you think the biggest education gap in the solar industry is right now?What do we need to do a better job of communicating to the public?

Annalisa Farrell:That’s a very, very good question to communicate to the public. cool to start off with now. I think that it would be really great for people to have more compassion when they’re installing the systems to some extent and then during those times where we see volatility within our industry to understand what builds those companies even though they are floundering or you know they’re making a transition in the industry perhaps you know they’re being purchased perhaps that company is going in a different direction.I think it would be crucial that as those shifts in the industry occur that there is compassion and empathy towards the homeowners during that time especially understanding, hey, as we installed your system, this is what it’s expected to produce, you should be receiving X type of communication through, you know, mail, email, this type of format is how you will be receiving that.And then during that, you know, end-of-company time or whatever that looks like during the volatility of their issue, I would say that it’s crucial to communicate, this is what you need to look for.These are your next steps, due to issues perhaps seen or unforeseen to the reason that someone would leave the industry.We’re leaving the industry. The company is leaving the industry or as homeowners enter the industry. This is what you’re aware of to make sure that they have resources available and you know, there are great resources out there like the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center that offers tours where you can go on to a site see the great capabilities of solar.You can see how agriculture and a microclimate under a panel can lead to longevity with the system and all of the different ways that you can have different pieces of, you know, farm animals on sites.The benefits larger than just, hey, it’s on my roof. I would say that it would be important to get people involved on the level that they get to feel they experience something.So perhaps more resources across the U.S. involving, you know, outreach is the Colorado Agrival take learning center has been doing to involve people a little bit more and recommending that hey field trips are there because I think the opposite direction that we would prefer it to go would be that you get tick-tock influencers on solar sites trying to say hey this is the cool thing which isn’t I don’t think the soul of the industry which is to say we want this through a technical engineering way to be something that’s beneficial to people and to see it real world through an agricultural point of you I think would be most beneficial and so if you had resources at the beginning the you know companies telling you hey this is what could happen you’ve got resources outside of that company and then should something happen at the end of a company’s time within the industry this is how we could treat you with a little compassion and empathy to say, Hey, here are your other companies that we would recommend looking at. And we are doing this for you, the consumer, because you helped us during this time to even build this company.Thanks for being a part of our vision here. Now we’d like to repay your investment in us by saying here’s the compassion and allowing you an exit or helping us through our exit.Here’s your next source because is, thank you for helping us a little bit.

Aaron Nichols:So just more clarity and expectation setting up front.Yeah. Well, and Alisa, to bring it home, I always I ask all my guests the same question at the end.And it has to do with the fact that I was at my grandma’s 80th birthday party a couple months ago.And I realized as I was sitting there that 80 years means she was born into a world where renewable energy did not exist.And everything that we now are fighting for wasn’t even a possibility when she was born in 1945. She was born right after the Rural Electrification Act in 1933, I believe, 1935, somewhere in there.And Solar PV was invented in 1954. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House in 1979 and then all of that development and just dropping of PV prices happened since the millennium.So I’m curious if you just want to spitball and throw out an answer, what do you think clean energy will look like 80 years from now?

Annalisa Farrell:Oh my, I truly hope it’s a more inclusive biomimetic process involving more portions of the environmental world within the hardware software components so there are companies that have been recently introduced the one that comes to mind at the top of my head as soulless industries.They’re out of Silverthorn Colorado and the concepts behind biomimicry, biomimetic concept is along the bullet train where we think about the bird that was referenced, the King Sparrow or something along those lines with the bullet train, to go along with aerodynamics.They were experiencing issues in the tunnel with the bullet train. And as the tunnel was going through the bullet train and it created an awful noise, they go, okay, oh, it’s the King Fisher, that’s the bird.So then they referenced, well, the King Fisher is able to dive at these incredible speeds, how do we reference that in the bullet train?And I think it would be cool to see that as they adopted the beak shape into the bullet train or the beak shape of the kingfisher into the bullet train, it would be nice to see the solar industry adopt more nature processes and biomimetics and how do we actually track the sun?So in soulless industries that was out of silver, or is out of silver-thorn Colorado. They were looking at different pieces of how heating oil was a more efficient way to track the sun as sunflowers do.So sunflowers track the sun all day and flowers are able to track the sun all day. We’re sitting here with algorithms and you know all of the different register tables to put it into the software to make sure that I can you know it’s tracking appropriately based on an irradiant sensor.But I think in 80 years there’s going to be hypothetically more integration with natural products where we’re seeing, you know, the technology that is referencing biodegradable and that we can recycle panels more efficiently that they’re able to be utilized on the outside of buildings that we can see absolute integration across total types of buildings and infrastructure.But in a way that’s very mindful and thoughtful aware of the best integration of these systems to say, you know, this is a spot where we really could utilize this and it’s going to be the best way for us to harness the sun without compromising any of the environmental aspects that we have because currently, you know, we’re doing great putting them on rooftops hate to see the clear cutting of landscapes hate to see the clear cutting of any type of environment where we’re putting into, you know, a monoculture.So at least let’s do dual use in agriculture or, you know, start looking at ways that we could put them on the outsides of buildings and get into the Jetsons future.It seems not that far off. But in a very mindful thoughtful way that’s saying, okay, what’s the best use of materials here so that we can do the efficiency biodiversity biodiversity of the sun that nature has been using for forever.And so it’s like the environment’s already thrived on this. The earth has sustained itself for long enough. If we’d like to sustain the solar industry, let’s start looking at how we can adopt some of the reference points throughout the other points of nature that we have, I think, not to be too much,

Aaron Nichols:but that’s a beautiful vision.

Annalisa Farrell:Well, I hope so. Yeah. I’ve got a little positive hopeful vision. Yeah.

Aaron Nichols:Well, if people want to find you, where can you be found?If you want to be found?

Annalisa Farrell:Currently I’m on LinkedIn right now and that would be the best way to contact me or through email.

Aaron Nichols:Okay, great. Yeah. Well, yeah, if anybody wants to talk to Annalisa and go find her on LinkedIn, thank you so much for coming on today.And for anyone listening, that’s been this week in solar.

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