Measure before you design
Twelve months of interval data before a layout exists. If we cannot get the data, we install temporary logging rather than assume the shape of the load.
Who we are
Twelve years of Valley roofs and Rule 21 queues
SunHarvest was founded in Bakersfield in 2014 by two engineers who had spent a decade watching commercial solar proposals sized from annual kilowatt hour totals. We started the company to do it the other way round.
- Founded
- 2014, Bakersfield
- Installed
- 86.4 MW DC (sample)
- Systems
- 214 energised
- Staff
- 38 across two offices
The story
It started with a packing shed that got the wrong array
In 2013 our founders were asked to review a 500 kW system on a Delano cold store that was underperforming its proposal by a wide margin. The modules were fine. The inverters were fine. The array had simply been sized from an annual kilowatt hour total with no reference to when the facility actually used electricity, and it was exporting through the middle of the day at a credited rate well below what the client paid to buy power back in the evening.
Worse, the proposal had promised savings that included the demand charge. Nobody had told the client that an array which finishes producing at sunset does nothing about a peak set at half past seven.
SunHarvest opened the following year with one rule: the interval data comes first. Twelve months of it, at 15-minute resolution, before anybody draws a module. Every other decision on a project is downstream of the load shape, and getting the load shape wrong invalidates all of them.
We have built 214 commercial systems since, from an 80 kW shop roof in Shafter to a 2.35 MW tracker field on water district land near Buttonwillow. We now employ 38 people across Bakersfield and Visalia, with a staging yard in Delano and a project desk in Fresno.
The rule has not changed, and neither has the willingness to tell a client that the answer is a control change rather than a purchase order.
Company figures
- 214
- Commercial systems energised
- 86.4 MW
- Installed capacity, DC
- 162 GWh
- Cumulative production
- 97.6%
- Median performance ratio
Since 2014
Across four counties
Metered, not modelled
Across monitored fleet
Sample figures for a demonstration website.
How we work
Six positions we do not negotiate
Name the constraint early
A tight roof, a busy circuit, a membrane with six years left. These do not improve by being discovered in month four, so we go looking for them in week one.
Size to the load, not the surface
Filling a roof is easy and frequently wrong. An array that exports half its output at a lower credited rate is a worse asset than a smaller one that does not.
Say when solar is not the answer
We have recommended a compressor sequencing change and a tariff switch instead of an array more than once. Shorter invoice, better outcome, client still there years later.
Own the schedule you control
Design, procurement and construction are ours and they run to plan. The utility queue is not ours, so we file early and report on it monthly even when nothing has moved.
Leave a record
Commissioning traces, serial registry, as-builts and a weather-corrected production history. A warranty claim in year nine should be an email, not an excavation.
The people
Eight engineers and managers, named
Small enough that the person who writes your basis of design is the person who answers the phone when you call about it.
Eight people, scroll sideways
Priya Raghunathan
Principal Engineer · PE, Electrical
Runs the basis of design on every system over 500 kW. Fifteen years of C&I PV, including four years on utility-scale interconnection studies.
Marcus Adeyemi
Director of Construction · NABCEP PVIP
Owns the schedule from mobilisation to green tag. Came up through racking crews and still walks every roof before a ballast plan is signed.
Dolores Fuentes
Interconnection Manager · Rule 21 specialist
Files every application and chases every screen. Has taken more than ninety projects through supplemental review without a distribution study.
Eli Brandhorst
Energy Analyst · CEM
Takes apart interval data and tariffs. Responsible for the demand-charge models and for telling clients when solar is not the answer.
Anneke Visser
O&M Lead · NABCEP PVIP
Runs the monitoring desk and the wash schedule. Built the soiling model that decides when a Valley array is washed.
Ray Coutinho
Structural Coordinator · CSLB B licence
Handles the roof: membrane condition, dead load, attachment details and the conversation with the roofing manufacturer.
Simone Okamoto
Preconstruction Manager · DBIA Associate
Estimating, procurement and the public works path. Knows which bonding and prevailing wage requirement applies before the bid opens.
Wesley Tran
Commissioning Technician · NABCEP PVIP
Every string IV traced, every protection setting verified, every baseline documented. If a number is in the handover pack, Wesley measured it.
CSLB #1071482
C-10 Electrical and B General Building (sample)
NABCEP certified
Four PV Installation Professionals on staff
$5M general liability
Plus $2M umbrella and full workers compensation
Bonded to $10M
Payment and performance bonding for public works
EMR 0.71
Three-year experience modification rate (sample)
Prevailing wage
Certified payroll on every public works project
Where we are
Two offices, one staging yard, one project desk
Head office and warehouse in Bakersfield. Crews and O&M dispatch from Visalia. Racking and modules staged in Delano. Permitting and utility liaison from Fresno.
Bring us the bill before you bring us the roof
Every project starts with twelve months of interval data and a load shape. The array comes after that, sized to what you actually use.
CSLB #1071482 (sample). Prevailing wage on public works. Engineers answer, not a call centre.