ELTR 2334: Intro to Solar-Photovoltaic Tech

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

• To give the students the requisite skills and knowledge to work safely when installing, troubleshooting, and maintaining solar-PV power systems.
• To give the students the requisite skills and knowledge to perform and produce a professional-quality solar site assessment.
• To give the students a solid understanding of seasonal solar geometry, and how to use that understanding to properly perform a site assessment, and system performance estimates, for a solar-PV power system.
• To give the student a working understanding of solar cell operating principles, and solar-PV module construction and operating characteristics.
• To give the student experiential knowledge of all routine solar-PV BOS (balance-of-system) components, including: module-mounting hardware, inverters, batteries, charge controllers, engine-generator sets, metering, data logging and reporting equipment, circuit protection hardware, etc.
• To give the students the requisite skills and knowledge to properly size a solar-PV system to a specific application, and to select appropriate system components to be included in the system.
• To give the student the sufficient understanding of PV system mechanical considerations, enabling the student to properly account for wind loads, snow loads, and potential seismic concerns, when physically mounting and racking system components.
• To give the students the requisite skills and knowledge to analyze and troubleshoot solar-PV systems that are not operating properly, or are completely non-functioning; and, to affect proper corrections and repairs to make the system safely and properly functional.