Solar PV installation workshop

Become a certified solar installer with this four day course.The $500 tuition fee includes food and lodging or $350 if you just want the instruction without accommodations. There's a $50 discount for early registrants or if you're bringing a friend. Students will receive the textbook entitled Photovoltaics: Design and Installation upon completion of the course.

Course includes:

1. Overview of photovoltaics : PV history, current and emerging technologies, advantages and disadvantages to PV, system components and types of systems

2. Photovoltaic electric principles : electric terminology, basic circuits, series and parallel wiring.

3. The solar resource: solar radiation fundamentals, gathering site data, site analysis

4. Electric load analysis: energy efficiency, refrigeration, lighting, calculating load estimates

5. Photovoltaic modules: pv principles, module characteristics, module performance and environmental conditions and pv mounting options.

6. Batteries: types and operation, specifications, safety, battery wiring, battery sizing.

7. PV controllers: types, features, specifying a controller, controller sizing.

8. Inverters: operating principles, types and features, batteryless grid-tied, stand-alone inverters, stand alone inverter sizing.

9. Photovoltaic system wiring: wire types and conduit, wire sizing, sizing exercises, overcurrent protection and sizing, disconnects, grounding surge suppression.

10. Sizing stand alone PV systems: design penalties, sizing exercise, hybrid systems with generators.

11. Grid-tied PV systems: types and advantages, system sizing and economics, obtaining interconnection agreements, net metering, and sizing.

12. PV and the national electric code

13. Interconnection issues

14. Slideshow of PV installations

Upon completion of this course the students should understand the detailed functionality of PV system components, and all common PV systems from straight water pumping to stand alone battery based systems, and grid tie PV with and without batteries. Students will be able to design and size these systems. They will see what is involved with interconnection to the utility.

This course prepares students to enter work as a competent installer. However, there are a great many National Electric Code issues that cannot be adequately addressed in one week and further training and experience is recommended.

Date: June 2010, TBA

The Farm is one of the largest and best known intentional communities in the U.S. Located on 1750 wooded acres in south central Tennessee, it is home to approximately 200 persons today. Founded in 1971 with a spiritual commitment to simple living and self-reliance. The Farm has pioneered a wide range of social and physical technologies appropriate to low-cost, high satisfaction community living. This tradition of entrepreneurship and progressive social change is embodied at our Inn at The Farm. The Inn provides comfortable accommodations for participatory training in all aspects of the village design and social organization for planetary transformation. The surrounding Farm community offers examples of solar building design, micro-enterprises, mushroom cultivation, organic gardening and regenerative hardwood forest management.