okay so
so that's all the good parts now let's talk about the bad parts
all right what's what are some of the challenges of engineering racking systems for solar
i think um that's a good question uh we we never considered the wind action loadings onto
structures um as of now um now you get a glimpse of what is actually um on the australian standards
that is related to solar um i think it's it's pretty still in a in a young stage because it's
it could be developed a little bit more in the australian standards um some areas are still
um subjective but it's very interesting um it it pretty much gives you an idea how to calculate
the pressure that the wind will action on that structure on that system at that very location
so um most of the times when we consider solar systems either the roof mount or ground mount we
have to consider all the surroundings so it's very interesting for me to understand how it developed
starting from how to select a terrain category or you start developing new concepts that you will
then use on a day-to-day um such as shielding is your structure shielded by anything where
is the critical points of that structure where are what could happen in
in the event that it will fail so many things to consider also the importance level
is that structure gonna be surrounded by a very large mass of people you know if
worse comes to worse and it would fail how many people you could potentially um harm or even
kill so it's it's very delicate people sometimes don't understand um so many things
behind it but yeah it's um and i believe that construction and solar will go together hand
in hand in the future um there's already been major developments in BIPV building-integrated
photovoltaics and uh it just it goes together i think it has to be towards that in the future
okay so uh that's an interesting point because you know i guess a lot of
installers can assume that every building you can find a way to get solar on is that true
um that's not true not at all not necessarily but the the positive thing that i think we offer is
that we have a site-specific certificate that we can design we can we have the generics that cover
of most of the scenarios but obviously when you need to adapt and customize the solution
then you start to evaluate different alternatives using other rails using other anchoring methods
maybe playing around with whatever you've got in your head we've installed at 220 meter high
on the sydney cbd so that gives you an idea um what do you think it could happen at 200 meters
high you know the gust winds the speed of the and and how is that structure gonna react to that
movement because um we have to figure out that it's not just a building there are actually two
structures is the racking structure attached to another structure so it has a connection or a link
between them and it's very interesting that's a good point i mean yeah i used to work in i
used to do cable i used to run cables for a living back in the day in the telecommunication space and
i remember we used to service it wasn't it wasn't 200-meter high building it was probably only a
50 meter high ability in the melbourne cbd but we used to have to get up on the roof sometimes and
it's a completely different feeling you know with the winds that can come through at
that height so it's not the same as just getting upon an on a house or a normal commercial
building you know you've got some serious winds that can come through at that height so it is a
bit of a challenge especially Melbourne with with the weather it's unpredictable
you know and yeah how does i mean how does this differ from how do the roofs or the buildings
and the roof structures differ in melbourne from your experience compared to places like venezuela
well i think um on tropical countries you see that um there's a lot of humidity but in terms of the
direction in which the wind can change so abruptly it's not that um as i consider here
in in melbourne which is very windy and you have to consider that that every wind front could be
possible and in any direction the wind can blow um close to hurry like tornado winds speeds
so we've seen 150 case an hour winds um here it's not very common in a tropical country
but you have different factors that that could be an issue yeah humidity and also i think if
with regards to an efficiency of the system it really depends on
how do you install it in which direction and and the latitude that you're facing the sun