“Most problems arise while solving a problem.”
Attributed to Albert Einstein
My first solar system had already grown old. Technical development had long overtaken it. But before it could die of old age, a tornado arrived and dealt with the matter in its own way.
It was not merely a strong wind, but a narrow whirlwind, perhaps thirty or forty metres wide. It crossed my mountain top from one valley to the other. A few metres beside its path, much remained almost untouched. In its track, it tore whole olive trees from the ground, lifted heavy manhole covers and carried solar panels as far as three hundred metres.
Even my eight-metre boat, built for eight people, was moved about two metres together with its trailer. Altogether it weighed roughly three tonnes.
My solar system and the sheet-metal shed beneath it stood directly in the tornado’s path. Both were a total loss.
At first I saw only destruction. Later the insurance company paid 18,000 euros. With that money I could build a new and better solar system. And instead of the metal shed, a stone garage was built.
The tornado had therefore not only destroyed. It had forced me to rebuild, and to build better.
Some years later, the new system also lost its rhythm. This time no whirlwind was needed. One scorched component caused a complete power failure.
After the part was replaced, the system worked technically again. Yet its internal logic had been disturbed. At one point the sequence of the whole system had been interrupted. The installation still ran, but no longer as intended. One part worked at the wrong time, another was not sufficiently protected. The result looked at first like a major technical defect.
Someone unfamiliar with such a system might have replaced devices at random. I began with the anamnesis: What had happened before the fault? Where had the normal sequence been interrupted? Which change had disturbed the balance?
The cause was not a defective device, but a single setting. One small click on the phone restored the original order.
Almost unnoticed, a second problem disappeared as well. For some time I had needed to restart my Wi-Fi router almost every day. I had already considered it the true cause. Only later did I understand that it too had merely been a victim of the same disturbance.
The power failure confused the control system. The confused control system disturbed the Wi-Fi. The disturbed Wi-Fi could no longer control the power correctly.
Cause and effect chased one another in a circle. A classic vicious circle.
With a single click, not only the original problem disappeared. The second one healed almost as a side effect.
I had to smile. Not because I had merely found an error, but because it became clear once again that a system is understood only when one stops treating isolated symptoms.
That sounds simple. It was simple only because I knew the structure of the installation and the idea behind it.
A technical system does not consist only of panels, batteries, cables and switches. It also has an inner logic. Those who do not know that logic see only individual devices. Those who understand it can reassemble the whole after a failure.
The tornado taught me to build more solidly. The power failure taught me to look more closely.
One left rubble. The other left confusion. Both led to the same insight:
Devices can be replaced. Understanding cannot.
