Solar Panel Repair in Tucson, AZ

Solar panel repair in Tucson usually starts with a number that looks wrong: a monitoring app showing half of last spring's output, an electric bill that crept up, or an inverter screen with a fault code nobody remembers seeing before. Tucson gets roughly 3,806 hours of sunshine a year, about 86 percent of what is possible, so a healthy system here should be producing almost every day. When it is not, there is a reason, and our job is to find it before anyone replaces parts.

Heat is the constant stress

The city averages about 158 days a year at or above 90 degrees, and summer highs run from the upper 90s into the low 100s. Panels lose some output as they heat up, which is normal. What is not normal is an inverter that shuts itself down every afternoon, a connector that has browned from resistance, or a string that reads well below its neighbors. Heat speeds up the wear on electronics and wiring, so those are the first places we look on an older system.

What a diagnostic visit covers

• Reading the inverter or microinverter fault history and comparing production to what the array should make for its size and tilt
• Checking string voltages and current to isolate a weak string or a failed module
• Looking at roof penetrations, racking, conduit and junction boxes for damage or loose fittings
• Thermal or visual checks for hot spots, cracked glass and delamination
• Confirming the monitoring gateway is actually reporting, since a dead Wi-Fi link can make a working system look broken

Get a Free Estimate

Monsoon season leaves its own marks

The monsoon officially begins June 15, though the first storms in Tucson tend to arrive around early July, and activity usually lasts through August and often into September. July averages a little over two inches of rain. Wind, blowing dust and sudden downpours are what a rooftop array sees during those weeks. After the season it is common to find dust caked onto glass, debris trapped under panels and conduit straps that worked loose. A cleaning and inspection in the fall puts the array back on track for the mild, sunny winter.

Permits inside city limits

Within the City of Tucson, solar systems that connect to a home's electrical service require a permit, and the city expects the structure the panels sit on to already be legal and permitted. Applications that come through SolarAPP+ go in the city's Express Lane with a 24-hour target, while other solar applications sit in the Standard Lane with a 20-business-day target. Not every repair needs a permit, but replacing an inverter with a different model, adding batteries or adding panels often does. We tell you which category your job falls into before work begins.

Talking to the utility

Tucson Electric Power serves more than 458,000 customers across the metro area. TEP requires a Modification Request Form, approved before construction, for major changes to an interconnected system, while minor changes can be reported after the work. Keeping the utility paperwork in order protects your export credits, so we plan repairs with that in mind. Call (520) 412-6946 to describe what you are seeing and we will set up a visit.