Off-Grid Living

Helipad solar lighting failures at a remote medevac pad do not always look like a power failure. Sometimes the power is fine and the pilot still waves off because a rigid solar rack in the approach path has triggered a Transport Canada frangibility violation that grounds the pad until the mount is removed or replaced.

Incident command solar failures at a winter SAR deployment do not always look like power failures. Sometimes they look like a generator that will not start and a laptop screen that goes black at the exact moment the search coordinator needs the grid map. I was asked to review the power system at an Incident

Pond aeration solar failures happen at 4 AM in July when the algae bloom is heaviest and the overnight aerator has been pulling the LFP bank down for 10 hours straight. I was asked to review the power system at a brook trout nursery operated by the Nipissing-Mattawa Conservation Authority on the South River near

Remote science lab solar power quality failures do not look like blackouts. They look like data anomalies that the research team spends weeks trying to explain before someone checks the power. I was asked to review the power system at a Canadian Forest Service remote carbon flux measurement station in the boreal forest near Gogama

Mining camp solar power failures in the Ring of Fire are not equipment failures. They are budget failures that happen three weeks before the drill results come in. I was asked to review the power system for a junior mining company running a 5-hole diamond drilling program on a chromite exploration claim in the James

Weather station solar power failures happen during the storms that matter most. I was called to Cape Scott on the northern tip of Vancouver Island in British Columbia to review the power system for an Environment and Climate Change Canada automated weather station at 280 metres elevation. The station had been operating for 3 years

Radio repeater solar power failures are not always blackouts. Sometimes the system keeps running, the repeater goes deaf, and nobody knows why for months. I was called to troubleshoot a receiver desensitization problem at a VHF search and rescue repeater operated by the Huronia Amateur Radio Club on a hilltop site near Midland on Georgian

Highway signage solar installations on heavy truck corridors do not fail suddenly. They fade progressively over weeks, unnoticed until the Variable Message Sign goes dark in a January whiteout. I was asked to review such an installation on northbound Highway 400 at the Innisfil Creek Road overpass in Simcoe County, Ontario. The sign, part of

Disaster relief solar power failures cost lives in the first 90 minutes and the cause is always the same inverter that nobody tested before it went into the shipping container. I was asked to review the power system for a mobile clinic deployment by a Canadian NGO operating near Port-au-Prince, Haiti following a 7.2 magnitude

Construction site solar power failures are not caused by bad panels or undersized batteries. They are caused by loose terminals that nobody notices because the pile driver has been running 40 metres away for months. I was asked to review the power system for a job trailer on a 14-storey residential tower project on the