Jimmy Dowds

Solar tour 2010

June 25th, 2010 |

Author: Jimmy

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We have been running around the country servicing solar PV systems.

First stop was Navan for a check up on the PV system we installed five years ago in the Credit Union all was well and it was a nice sunny day.

Navan Credit Union

PV system on the roof on Navan Credit Union

View from the roof

Then we drove across country to Galway and got off the new road at Ballinaslow very boring driving on dual carriageways and we missed the toll Next morning we were off to Roundstone and then by boat to Inishlacken Island to repair a PV system that was installed ten years ago but not by us.

Inishlacken looking over at Gurteen beach

The PV system suffered badly from the effects of the salt air as you can see in the photos 3 of the panels died and we had to bypass them. Also the C40 controller this is not the first one I have seen giving up before it’s time.

The mountings were galvanized unistrut

More rust you should use stainless steel in this environment

Decomposing connections in a junction box on the back of a panel

Completely rusted away mounting you can see where it was by the marks on the panel

All in all not a good job no grease on the connections and badly sealed and the wire run is over 100ft with 500w of PV at 12v they were losing a lot of power with 10mm wire. We hope to be back to install a new charge controller and some panels on a stainless steel rack before the summer is over. We went for a swim at gurteen beach before we went back to Galway nice place but the water was cold.