The Top Information Sources For Solar Contractors

Key takeaway: Solar Contractors need to continually check different information sources to keep up-to-date with government changes, new technologies, and new ways of doing business in solar. This means looking beyond traditional news sources and into blogs, Reddit threads, YouTube, and even podcasts.

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Beyond figuring out ever-changing government incentives and market forces, Solar Contractors must also keep up to date on technological shifts, hardware evolutions, and the broader economic shifts that may impact the solar industry globally. 

This requires a constant flow of information, but that flow can easily become overwhelming. 

In this article, we highlight a few key sources of information that our community of certified solar professionals turns to when they want to stay up to date without being inundated. 

Industry insights

When something happens in the industry, you need to know two things: the specific changes or shifts that are happening and what to do with that information. 

Our team finds that solar-specific news sites and forums help them understand the key changes. In particular: 

• Solar Power World

• Solar Builder Magazine

• PV Magazine

• PV Tech

• SunCast Media

• Alt Energy Magazine

• Solar Energy Industry Association

• Renewable Energy World

• Reddit’s r/Solar subreddit

For the second part—digesting the information and figuring out what action to take, if any—our community turns to trusted influencers in the space of drones and solar combined: 

• Michael Gula for understanding the world of 3D models

• Lisa Despart for learning more about drones in solar

• David Young for learning more about drones and photogrammetry 

Drone technology for surveys

Drones are increasingly important for collecting comprehensive, recent, and accurate data that’s used for solar designs. 

Whether totally new to drones or wanting to keep up with the latest updates, here are the resources our community turns to:

• Drone Life for news specifically about drones

• UAV Coach, for learning how to fly drones

• Drone Girl for getting started with drones and keeping up to date with feature changes

• DroneDJ for drone reviews and learning to fly

• Indiana Drones, a YouTube channel dedicated to reviewing drones and teaching viewers about drone flight

• Commercial UAV, which features news and insights about the commercial drone market

Technical insights on photogrammetry and 3D modeling

If you’re looking to go one level deeper and understand the mechanics behind photogrammetry, orthomosaic maps, and 3D modeling, here are the resources our team turns to:

• Stachniss Lab on Photogrammetry & Robotics offers an online course full of technical tutorials and fundamental concepts of photogrammetry

• Authors regularly publish posts using the photogrammetry tag on Medium, sharing insights ranging from beginner to highly technical

If you are totally new to photogrammetry, these resources can be helpful. That said, make sure you also learn more about drones, since you’ll use them to capture geo-tagged data that is the input for 3D models. 

Communities where you can meet technical practitioners

Whether working solo or if you have a team, it can be great to connect with other practitioners in the field. Here are the communities you can check out:

• Reddit’s r/Photogrammetry subreddit

• Reddit’s r/UAVMapping subreddit

• DIYDrones, a forum and community of drone pilots

Certification and license programs also have private communities. For example, once you get your Part 107 FAA license for commercial drone flight, you can join their invite-only community. The same exists for NABCEP-certified solar professionals. If you already have these certifications and haven’t joined a community yet, reach out to ask how you can get connected.

Continue learning, continue growing

Lots is happening and will continue to happen in the solar industry; you need a well-rounded information diet to stay up to date.

Sometimes that will come from traditional news outlets, but often you’ll want more insight or more technical depth—that’s where these niche sources come in handy. As you learn more, make sure to integrate that into your work, whether that’s making surveys more efficient with drones, leveraging purpose-built solar design tools, or even using 3D models in your sales and marketing efforts.