Solar Energy International (SEI) training

PVOL101 is your gateway to a career in the solar industry.  It all starts with the fundamentals, and a solid understanding of various components, system architectures, and applications for PV systems.  Other topics include site analysis, system sizing, array configuration, and performance estimation; electrical design characteristics such as wiring, overcurrent protection, and grounding; a detailed look at module and inverter specifications and characteristics; mounting methods for various roof structures and ground-mounts; and an introduction to safely and effectively commissioning grid-direct PV systems.  This course focuses on grid-direct PV systems, but covers material critical to understanding all types of PV systems.  These core concepts are expanded on in SEI’s upper ­level PV courses. This course was recently refreshed – click here to see what’s been updated.

This solar training workshop offers five days of hands-on installation practice with grid-direct systems. By working in small groups, students will put what they’ve learned in PV101 to the test. Students will fully install and commission a wide variety of system types before testing the system, then de-commissioning and breaking down. Students rotate between a commercial ballasted roof, two steep roofs, a ground-mount, and a pole-mount system that contain a variety of inverters, racking hardware and mounting methods. Students will learn fall protection best practices and different harness set-ups. They will learn lockout/tagout procedures to create a safe working environment and use an assortment of meters to test systems.

PV101 is your gateway to a career in the solar industry.  It all starts with the fundamentals, and a solid understanding of various components, system architectures, and applications for PV systems.  Other topics include site analysis, system sizing, array configuration, and performance estimation; electrical design characteristics such as wiring, overcurrent protection, and grounding; a detailed look at module and inverter specifications and characteristics; mounting methods for various roof structures and ground-mounts; and an introduction to safely and effectively commissioning grid-direct PV systems.  This course focuses on grid-direct PV systems, but covers material critical to understanding all types of PV systems.  These core concepts are expanded on in SEI’s upper ­level PV courses.

Take a deep dive into National Electrical Code (NEC® 2020) standards as well as other best practices that pertain to designing safe and efficient grid-direct PV systems. PV202 focuses on residential and commercial-scale systems, but the Code requirements, design parameters, and best practices are applicable to all types and sizes of PV installations, including utility-scale. Detailed lessons address requirements for disconnects, overcurrent protection, and wire sizing; interconnection requirements and calculations; grounding, ground-faults, and surge protection; calculations and examples for system sizing, inverter selection, and electrical configuration; ground and roof mount details; and labeling and data acquisition systems.

PV systems with energy storage are a rapidly growing segment of the industry. This course builds a foundation for understanding many battery-based applications, in which the complexity far exceeds that of a grid­-direct PV system. Load analysis is addressed along with other critical design criteria such as battery bank design, equipment options, and electrical integration of system components. Component options are covered in detail, including batteries, charge controllers, and battery­-based inverters. Different battery chemistries, associated pros and cons, and cost comparisons are investigated along with safety and maintenance considerations unique to battery­-based PV systems.