PV201L: Solar Electric Lab Week (Grid-Direct) - In-Person Training
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.
PREREQUISITE COURSES: Before participating in the PV201L course, students MUST complete PV101 or PVOL101 OR an equivalent course from another organization, have NABCEP certification, or demonstrate field experience and pass a placement quiz.
Students who complete the PV201L workshop will be able to:
- Perform power and energy calculations
- Obtain and apply specifications for PV modules and determine their performance given various environmental and operating conditions
- Safely operate various types of digital multimeters
- Diagram and determine the power, current, and voltage characteristics of PV modules in different series and parallel configurations
- Install various mounting systems (ground, pole, roof, and trackers).
- Decipher balance-of-system equipment specification sheets to determine the critical information needed for system design
- Install a residential grid-direct system including the array, inverter, circuit conductors, and overcurrent protection
- Safely operate equipment grounding, system grounding, and components and conductors used for grounding
- Work with wires and components on schematics of residential grid-direct systems: disconnects, inverter, equipment grounding conductors, ungrounded conductors, grounded conductors, the grounding electrode(s), and the AC and DC system grounds
- Identify potential safety hazards and demonstrate the proper use of personal protective equipment for working on grid-direct PV systems
- List the order of installation, commissioning, and decommissioning of a grid-direct PV system
Note: This class is a great complement to PV301L, the Solar Electric Lab Week (Battery-Based).