The Solar Foundation Releases Its Solar Workforce Development Toolkit

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

We can all agree that the solar industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States, right? Heck, The Solar Foundation tells us so every year with its National Solar Jobs Census (well, except for this year, because tariffs, but for the past decade or so it’s been on a huge growth trajectory – and we believe will shortly be again). But how can you find workers for this specialized industry and bring them into this well-paying career?

Well, the trick is workforce development, and now The Solar Foundation has released a 94-page Solar Workforce Development Toolkit designed to help solar companies develop their workforces with a series a proven strategies that every business can implement in their day-to-day business practices.

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According to the Foundation, the document is intended to start conversations among employers, with engagement from all stakeholders.The implementation guide and action plan promotecollaborative, regional and adaptive strategies as markets evolve and solar continues to become a mainstream part of the American energy sector.

In the toolkit, solar employers will discover the tools they need to establish the kinds of community partnerships necessary to build a diverse talent pipeline. It shows solar employers how to turn the industry from just a “job” into a career, outlining ways to integrate solar into the public workforce development system and provides strategies to overcome real or perceived challenges. Finally, it will show employers hot to implement work-based learning models to invest in the skillsets of current and future workers.

Based on two years of Solar Training Network research that included talking to employers, trainers, industry associations and community organizations in diverse solar markets, it’s expected to giver solar employers the tools and skills they need to meet the high demand for qualified employees and build a skilled and diverse solar workforce.

The release comes approximately one year after The Solar Foundation released its first-ever diversity study, which found the industry was doing a poor job of recruiting from non-traditional solar audiences. The toolkit is the first concrete proposal to improve that diversity and widen solar’s appeal as a future profession.

Intersolar North America Is Officially Here – What To Expect From SolarWakeup

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

My Intersolar North America sojourn started yesterday, standing in the 90-degree heat looking at a new testing facility for bifacial solar modules.

Run by Soltec but informed by input from some of the industry’s leading manufacturers and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), The Bifacial Tracker Evaluation Center (BiTEC) will perform rigorous assessment of installation and control parameter influences on bifacial tracker performance compared to other PV applications.

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One of the key challenges holding back the widespread use of bifacial modules is a lack of real-world data on how they perform in the field, according to the NREL researcher on hand to explain the BiTEC test site yesterday. What the new evaluation center is designed to do is give researchers the real-world insights into bifacial modules electricity production, which will allow more information to flow on how they compare with traditional modules.

And, as with other solar innovations, the more information we have, the more innovation can come.

So congratulations to Soltec, JinkoSolar, REC Solar, Black and Veatch and the rest of the partners who had a part in putting together this innovative center. I look forward to seeing what data comes out of it and how it moves the industry forward.

This is the kind of information that is rife at shows like Intersolar North America, and it’s the kind of information I plan on bringing you over the next three days. Given the informative sessions and the new technology on the show floor, there is no end of information and news that I will be able to bring you. While I could give you an outline of exactly what I’ll be writing about, I’d prefer to have it unfold for you as it will for me – it will be as if you’re here attending the show with me.

Personally, I can’t wait to see what Intersolar North America has in store for us all – I hope you’re ready to take the journey with me.

ACC Insider Dealing Throws Shade on Arizona Solar Market

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The invaluable Ryan Randazzo at AZCentral.com revealed today that the executive director of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), which oversees public utilities in the state, has had to resign because his wife worked for the lobbying firm that represents – wait for it – the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service.

Although there is no evidence of direct influence, the scent of conflicted interests surrounding Executive Director Tom Vogt was so strong that he resigned ahead of an emergency meeting the commissioners had called to discuss whether he had in fact violated state law by not disclosing his wife’s job.

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Vogt was a strange choice as executive director when he joined the commission in January 2017. As I wrote at the time for pv magazine, his resume was pretty thin:

Vogt’s resume is longer, but his energy experience is even thinner than Forese’s. After a five-year career as an investment banker, Vogt entered the Air Force as an intelligence officer and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He then joined then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s staff as a daily intelligence briefer.

Vogt served three years as an Arizona representative and led the state’s Department of Veterans’ Services before Monday’s appointment. His most notable legislative achievements focused on veterans’ issues and not on energy. He is also a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative policy shop whose anti-solar stances are legendary.

Given the information Randazzo uncovered, is it really any surprise that the solar industry in, mind you, a state with the highest insolation rates in the country is struggling? Vogt is not the first commissioner to have ties to APS, and APS has not been shy about spreading its money around in commissioner races in the past. It’s nice to see some accountability finally being put in place for these conflicts, but Vogt isn’t the only compromised member of the commission. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the long run.

It should also be noted that Vogt’s resignation comes shortly after Commissioner Andy Tobin put forth a proposal to raise Arizona’s RPS to 80% by 2050 to counter a proposal by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer to raise the RPS to 50% by 2030.

The difference between the two proposals is that Tobin’s is significantly more friendly to APS than Steyer’s plan, in that it considers nuclear power to be “clean energy.” APS currently owns two nuclear plants in the state and is the only utility to do so.

More:

Solar neophytes join ACC as its new leaders

Arizona Regulator Wants To Get Ahead Of The Voters (And That May Be OK)

Scott Pruitt Out At EPA; Former Coal Lobbyist To Step In For Now

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

There’s always a creative tension about covering the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a solar reporter. On the one hand, they don’t have anything directly to do with energy policy, so some solar reporters feel it’s not worth covering.

On the other hand, as a solar reporter, it’s impossible to completely separate the environment and the Solar Revolution, since one of solar’s biggest selling points is that it helps reduce greenhouse gases and thereby helps the environment. Therefore, policy set by the EPA can have an indirect effect on the solar industry whether it wants it to or not.

But sometimes there’s a news story so big you have to cover it no matter what, and such is this afternoon’s news that the scandal-plagued EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned one step ahead of the law. And his replacement at the agency, on at least an interim basis, is former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler.

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This, as you might imagine, is not good news.

As the Department of Energy hatches plans to bailout failing coal and nuclear plants, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to see Wheeler finish the job Pruitt so clearly had started. Both men savor the idea of eviscerating any environmental protection regulations currently in place, and Wheeler may have an added incentive – in the form of his former coal colleagues calling him on the phone – to finish slashing regulations on coal mines faster than ever before.

Here’s where things get particularly ugly for the solar industry: Though Wheeler is only the interim EPA chief, he can hold the post for up to seven months under the Vacancies Reform Act because his appointment to the agency has already been confirmed by the Senate. And 210 days is plenty of time for Wheeler to work in concert with Secretary of Energy to finish the coal/nuclear bailout plan and give coal its time in the … sun … again.

Oy vey.