From power electronics to service
The hardware
We started in solar power electronics. We built the 400P, which we believe is the world's smallest solar micro-inverter, and demonstrated it on a rooftop at the University of Texas.
The installers
Working with installers, we kept hearing about problems that had nothing to do with how small an inverter could be.
The real problem
The hard questions came after installation. What is broken? How do we repair it? Which parts does it need? Who does the work, and what will it cost? The answers existed somewhere: in a manual, a service record, a photo on a technician's phone, the memory of the most experienced person on the crew. They were rarely where the technician needed them.
The move
Better hardware would not fix that. So we moved to software.