The City of Raleigh recognized individuals and organizations committed to preserving and improving the environment at its seventh annual Environmental Awards celebration Tuesday evening, April 22 at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. More than 200 people attended.

The N.C. Solar Center’s Renewable Energy Technologies Diploma Series won the City of Raleigh’s 2014 Regional environmental Award.  “We are very excited and honored to win this prestigious award from the City of Raleigh,” said Maria O’Farrell, training program manager at the Center. “The Diploma Series is turning 10 this year, and this is a great way to celebrate what the program has accomplished.”

The Diploma Series Turns 10

The Diploma Series, as it is now called, is an award-winning program recognized by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s Institute of Sustainable Power Quality (IREC ISPQ) as offering  Accredited Training Programs for photovoltaic and solar thermal.

“The Solar Center had always offered solar workshops since its inception,” said Steve Kalland, Executive Director, who also birthed the idea of a series of intensive workshops.  “But, there needed to be a program that catered not just to the enthusiastic homeowner, but more importantly to the professional who wanted renewables to be part of their portfolio of services.”

The program has changed a lot since that rainy fall week in 2004. For one, it has doubled its course offerings from four to eight. It now includes the Certificate in Renewable Energy Management, a project development course, and through a partnership with EverBlue, has started offering BPI and RESNET certificate courses.

Throughout the years, the Center has also introduced customized training to bring renewable energy education around the region. It has collaborated with the Northeast Workforce Development Board to bring at least four week-long courses to Edenton, North Carolina. It has developed custom training to utility personnel from Duke Energy to Fayetteville PWC, and has delivered workshops to military facilities in Norfolk, Virginia and Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. In addition, the Center has hosted several company training, such as SunPower, SolarWorld, and Advanced Green Technologies.

Join us this year as we celebrate the 10^th year anniversary of the Renewable Energy Technologies Diploma Series. We will be highlighting many of our esteemed alumni and letting you in on the many ways you can get continuing education and certifications.

For more information, contact Maria O’Farrell at maria_ofarrell@ncsu.edu or call 919-523-8888.

If you haven’t heard, the Solar Center is now drilling for energy! In response to the need for more geothermal installer training, the NC Solar Center is offering a 40- hour International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA) Accredited Installer course.  This week-long Geothermal course will be held on April 29 – May 3, 2013 in Raleigh, and is part of the Renewable Energy Technologies Diploma Series.

This week-long workshop is designed for developers, architects, manufacturers, distributors, dealers, installers, HVAC contractors, trenching/drilling contractors, and anyone who desires a working knowledge of this innovative and rapidly growing technology. Representatives from public utilities, private utilities, and rural electric cooperatives can also benefit from training.  NC well contractors receive up to 40 CEU from the NC Well Contractors Certification Commission. Click here to register now!

The N.C. Solar Center completed another successful round of the Certificate in Renewable Energy Management (CREM) program. CREM is the only program in the country that is especially designed for the non-installer that covers trends in renewable energy technology, federal and local policy, and financing strategies. Professionals who have attended the program come from diverse backgrounds – from engineering to marketing, and banking to project development.  The class, which typically runs for three months, requires participants attend 36-plus hours of online and onsite classes, complete the short quizzes and submit and present a group project. Each group project is comprised of professionals from different disciplines to work together and come up with a project that uses the skills and knowledge gained during the course of the program.

“For me, a particular highlight was viewing the class projects undertaken and presented by the students taking the program,” said Forrest Milder, a Boston-based lawyer who taught the course Practical Aspects of Renewable Energy Project Development, and was also a former chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge.   “The students obviously put a first-class effort into their work and treated the assignment like a true business opportunity.  They interviewed potential off-takers, developers, accountants and lawyers, and some of the groups produced a classy work product that looked like it was done by a seasoned professional.   You could tell that these groups put a lot of work into it their presentation and it didn’t look like a mere class project.”

Projects have included feasibility studies, a study on community solar’s perils and promise, and proposals for clean energy systems in manufacturing. The fall 2012 class projects involved creative ways to have solar installation on schools and university buildings, and a non-profit business plan to distribute pre-fabricated powerports with emergency and developing world use.

“The most tangible value that the class gets out of this particular course is the group project,” said Lyra Rakusin, Workforce Development Specialist at the N.C. Solar Center and course designer of CREM. “The effort that each group puts in analyzing the pros of a location, gathering the data, deciding which technology to use, and making the project work financially helps these professionals understand what it takes to make it in this growing industry. In the end, these are the skills needed to create the jobs of this century.”

While the CREM program caters to the non-technical side of renewables, the N.C. Solar Center continues to offer workshops for installers and system designers of solar electric, solar thermal, wind systems and home energy raters. The Center also has workshops for STEM teachers and community college instructors who wish to incorporate renewable energy into the classroom. That effort is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Program and the Solar Instructor Training Network.

For more information about the Certificate in Renewable Energy Management, contact Lyra Rakusin at lyra_rakusin@ncsu.edu or 919-624-3061.

BPI, LEED GA, SIS, Oh my! The training programs team has been busy creating an alphabet soup of workshops for anyone with an interest in green energy. After all, the renewable energy and energy efficiency industry isn’t just about installers and energy raters. The industry can only thrive when there are financial analysts, accountants, sales people, educators and a host of other job descriptions that exist in other sectors of the economy.

In May, 15 professionals completed the Certificate in Renewable Energy Management (CREM). This program aims to help businesses in individuals navigate the complexities of renewable energy project development and management. The 40 credit hour workshop was kicked off by Southern Energy Management’s Bob Kingery last March 15^th and ended with a talk by renowned Boston lawyer Forrest Milder who brought it home with class on the Practical Aspects of Renewable Energy Project Development. Four groups presented their projects, ranging from a community solar project to an industrial combined heat and power application with geothermal and solar back-up.

July brings a string of brand new workshops. Presented jointly with CleanEdison, the Solar Center is now offering the Building Performance Institute – Building Analyst (BPI-Building Analyst) five-day workshop and the two-day Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Green Associates (LEED-GA) workshop. The BPI – Building Analyst is the newest workshop to become integrated into the Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) Diploma Series. As such, taking this workshop together with two other 40-hour courses would count towards your RET Diploma. Other workshops belonging to the RET Diploma Series include PV fundamentals, PV-Advanced, Solar Thermal, Wind, and CREM.

On top of the new energy efficiency and green building workshops, the Center is also focused on bringing instructor training to a different level. In 2010, the Solar Center was named one of eight Regional Training Providers in the country to be a part of the U.S. Department of Energy funded Solar Instructor Training Network. Originally focused on training instructors to teach future installers, the Center has expanded instructor training to not only involve technical instructors in community colleges, but also to include STEM teachers and other tertiary level educators in other disciplines who might want to integrate solar topics in the classroom. Thus, the Solar Instructor Series was created.

The Solar Instructor Series is a program for educators who are committed to introducing photovoltaic  (PV) concepts into the classroom. Whether it is in a basics of electricity class, a sustainable business course, or an alternative energy degree, educators in this program will gain information and access to resources to help them teach solar to their students.  There are 11 workshops in this series. All of these workshops are available to the public and can be accessed without being in the program. But only those accepted in and are committed to the goals of the program can avail of the deep discounts to these workshop. To get the list of courses offered under the Solar Instructor Series, and to apply, go to go.ncsu.edu/solartrainers.

This program is for the non-installer, who would like to learn more about policy, technologies, and finance in the renewable energy industry.  It’s a unique program, and the only one like it offered in the country! Participants attend class both in person and online, and have a group project to wrap up the end of the course.

Seats fill up quickly, so be sure to sign up soon.  The first 10 registratns receive $200 off the cost of the class, so remember to ask if you are one of the first ten to register!

Learn more and register