The community solar array near my house went dark 2 weeks ago and nobody saw it coming

I signed up for this shared solar project in Burlington back in March, figured it was a no-brainer for lowering my electric bill. Then a transformer blew on the 12th and the whole system went offline for 4 days while they waited on parts. When it finally came back on, my share of the output dropped by almost 30% compared to last month. Has anyone else dealt with unexpected failures in community solar setups?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_walker5712d ago

You ever notice how these community solar setups are like those neighborhood wifi networks where one person's router dies and suddenly everyone's buffering? I had a buddy in Maine who signed up for a shared array and then a bird built a nest in the inverter cabinet, knocked the whole thing out for two weeks because the company had to wait on a specialist to clean it out. Feels like every time something goes wrong, it takes twice as long as it should to fix because nobody keeps spare parts on hand.

the_ray13d ago

Man, that's rough. "Nobody saw it coming" is exactly the kind of surprise nobody wants on a setup that's supposed to be reliable. Hoping the utility gets their act together and that 30% drop isn't a permanent thing for you.