The “Inside Carolina Solar Services” series includes talking with our employees and interviewing them on what they do. We sat down with Chris Harris to find out more about his role at CSS and what a typical day is like for him as a Senior Solar Technician.
Question: What is your position at Carolina Solar Services? Describe a bit about what you do in that role.
Chris: I am a Senior Solar Technician at CSS. Basically, I take the clean energy system work orders generated by our performance engineering department and troubleshoot them – picking out the most important ones to look at first. The work orders indicate some kind of maintenance or performance issue and I figure out whether there is a problem with an inverter that isn’t working or something else.
Question: What is a typical day for you?
The first thing I do each day is check my schedule and find out the first, second, and third priorities that need my attention. Once I know those, I look at each work order and figure out what the issue could be and what equipment I need to fix it. I always put forth the effort to resolve the issues before contacting the equipment vendor. The experience I’ve had as a field service technician gives me the confidence to troubleshoot the issue first.
I travel throughout the Greenville, North Carolina region. I have one other technician that works in the Greenville region with me. CSS also has teams in Lumberton and Durham. The teams work together and are on call different weekends to make sure we address problems outside of the Monday – Friday 8-5pm schedule. We want to reduce downtime and improve performance and that requires working on weekends occasionally.
Question: What is the most unusual thing you have found at a site?
Chris: Once you go inside the gate of a solar field you can find just about anything from feeder or string repairs for solar combiner boxes, inverter problems, communication problems for weather stations, and a host of other issues. The most unusual issue I ever encountered was an underground feeder that was working on one side, but on another part of the site there was no electricity. I had to figure out why that was happening and how to fix it without replacing the entire feeder.
Question: What are one or two things that you have done at Carolina Solar Services that you are especially proud of?
Chris: At one site I had to replace five combiner boxers. It was very intense because each box had 20-25 wires coming into it from the solar array. When I was all done there was no problem with the cabling, but it took time to go through all the boxes. Another project that comes to mind is when I diagnosed an inverter problem within 30 minutes, saving the piece of equipment. I knew the inverter very well and that helped me figure out the problem right away.
Question: How did you end up at CSS?
Chris: I come from a manufacturing background. I was the lead mechanic at a facility but wanted to get further into electrical work rather than staying in a mechanical role. I had a friend working with a solar company and he encouraged me to pursue that path as a hands-on electrician. I got a job with CSS and it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I have been with CSS almost five years.
Question: What is something else that you do outside of work?
Chris: I bought a foreclosed home and have been remodeling it. I’m redoing the kitchen, bathroom, and adding new floors. I am a hands-on person and I enjoy using my hands to create something new. I recently turned part of my porch into a master bathroom with high ceilings and connected the house to the outside garage. All of this will add value to the house down the road.