I have been interested for some time in the concept of generating electricity via solar photovoltaic (PV). To my mind this aspect of sustainable energy development has nowhere to go but up from here. If you will pardon a bad pun, the future is bright in this space.
With that in mind I hiked myself over to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for a one week intensive course in the design and installation of solar PV systems. The course was put on by the Canadian Solar Institute (CSI). All instruction in the course was done by a gentleman from the CSI named Mario Borsato. If there was a person anywhere who knows more about solar PV systems than Mario, I couldn’t imagine who that could be.
As for the course itself, it was very intensive. Mario admitted that the course could easily be 2 to 3 weeks long considering all the training that is involved. It’s just that most people can’t take that much time off of their regular work schedules and the cost of the training could get quite high for many folks. It was exhausting but I hungrily consumed all the information I could on this topic.
Me and my fellow trainees with our first solar panel installation at the Dartmouth Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) campus. I’m 3rd from the right.
After this training I am confident that I could design and install a solar PV system at my own house or the house of a friend. It will take more experience for me to feel confident in providing this service on a commercial basis however.
I knew it was a relatively complex procedure to design and install a system like this. I didn’t realize how complicated and error-prone the procedure could be. One of the conclusions I reached after this training was that there likely is a significant number of these systems that have been installed the last few years that are substandard. It’s not hard to imagine that some fledgling solar contractors, seeing the potential in this technology, would start to install these without adequate training. There is a myriad of ways that these systems could be installed sub par. I have no hard evidence of this so I definitely would not comment on any specific examples. As I gain more experience I may be able to highlight some of the major errors that do occur with solar PV installations.
In the meantime, I have my training in hand thanks to Mario and the CSI, and I’m looking for experience!
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