Bill

Abstract: Every year lately there have been thousands of residential PV installations.  APS reported 19,282 new installations on their system in 2022, totaling over 200 mWpv.  With this number of installations, by a growing number of installers, there are bound to be a few problems.

Due to my long experience, especially with codes and standards, I am often asked to look at PV systems that the owners were upset with from a performance and/or saving short coming.

This talk will cover two such systems, one on the APS system, the other on SRP.  Both owners asked for PV systems that would essentially eliminate their utility bills.  Neither was happy with the results.  The performance of each system is explainable and in most aspects the system designer could have done a better job.  Technical and contractual problems will be explained, but as of this date neither system has been brought up to the owner’s expected overall performance.  Technical details will be presented.

Biography:

William J. Kaszeta (Bill) is a mechanical engineer by profession.  He has been in the photovoltaic (PV) industry since 1974 in various design, engineering, marketing, and management capacities. In 1981 he moved to Arizona as part of Solavolt International, a partnership between subsidiaries of Shell Oil Company and Motorola, Inc.  Bill was responsible for managing several large-scale international projects for Solavolt and continued PV projects with Photovoltaic Resources International in 1986 and Photovoltaic Systems Manufacturing LLC (PSM) in 1996.

Mr. Kaszeta has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Masters in Business Administration from Babson College.  Bill was a major participant in the development of consensus standards for PV systems and is a technical expert for the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for international standards being adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

Bill is mostly retired, but over the years he has designed, installed, and operated many different photovoltaic systems.