The Solangelist Learns To Install Solar & Loves It

I have to admit that for the first few hours of day one in PV101: Introduction to Photovoltaics I was dazed and confused by all the foreign concepts I was trying to grasp at once.  I wasn’t feeling very Creative or very Greenius.  I was feeling mostly dumb ass.

electricalequationsUnderstanding Ohm’s Law of resistance, the basics of current, amps and volts, not to mention the concepts of alternating current, Kirchhoff’s Circuit laws and the many fun equations that spell it all out – if you happen to read and understand those hieroglyphics – had me feeling pretty damn ignorant and out of my element.

The extent of my electrical background heretofore consisted of installing lighting fixtures and new wall switches – so long as they were replacements for existing items that got wired the same way.

Now my head was swimming with concepts of Joules, Coulombs and electrons all dancing about in the mysterious ways they create electricity.

And I was quite certain that of the 25 or so other guys in the room, every single one of them knew a hell of a lot more about the electrical basics than I did.