PV Installer Certified Program [RE-wrenches]

[Allan Sindelar]

Wrenches,
[Rant: ON]
     I have previously posted that I support all valid licenses and
certifications that will help our
industry mature. PV systems are becoming increasingly mainstream, and are
catching more and more
attention of everyone from inspectors to homebuilders' associations to
lenders to insurance companies to
lawyers. We are seriously immature as far as any sort of self-established
standards to maintain
professional standards for qualifying people to install systems. We have all
seen bad work. We see it in
California, where everything is regulated to the point of absurdity-remember
Doug Pratt's posting
about his brother's installation that was incapable of functioning? We see
it here in New Mexico, where the
only requirement is licensure as an Electrical Contractor. Most of the
people installing PV in our state
don't have a license, the licensing process can be routinely scammed, and we
often rant about poor
quality installations we see that don't meet code or work, even if inspected
and passed.
     We became Xantrex Certified Dealers in the first round. This isn't
because of a great affection
for Xantrex (hoo boy.) but because it was a valid first attempt to set a
standard for
we wrenches who are doing the job right to be recognized as such (thanks,
Pagan), to set ourselves
apart from the pickup-truck cowboys, and to charge more for our knowledge
and the quality of our
work. Most customers can't tell the difference between a killer system and a
mediocre one. We
wrenches need all the ways we can to set ourselves apart to the customer.
     The NABCEP Certification Program is a valid attempt to provide now a
structure for our
industry to mature in the future. I have not seen the kind of "another layer
of bureaucracy" and other
knee-jerk criticisms that a few of the wrenches have expressed. This needs
our support, not our criticism,
as we who do good work are the ones who will most benefit from a set of
national standards.
     I spent a month up at Home Power Central back around ten years ago,
getting PV training by
osmosis and putting together the structure for Richard's Advanced PV course
at SEI later that summer.
Home Power had just started doing color covers. People would write to HP
ranting up and down about
how the mag was becoming another slick Outside and corporate lapdog.
Richard and Karen saw that they needed to get a more professional package
for newsstand sales and
mainstream advancement of renewables. They were right.. There's a sense I
get that the resistance to a
national certification standard for PV installers is the same reaction.
Wrenches, we need to get behind
this effort the most of anyone.
     If you look at the prerequisites, the last one is set up to allow those
of us who are wrenches to
essentially be grandfathered in, based on evidence of systems installed.
This provision is proposed to be
sunsetted after two years, so it clearly is a legitimate option for we
wrenches to get on the bus if we so
choose. Note also that the whole program is a voluntary national
certification. The contrarians and
iconoclasts and curmudgeons who don't want to participate don't have to.
Yes, eventually some states
may adopt NABCEP standards as state requirements. By that time anyone on
this list today will easily
meet the requirements, and may well be grandfathered in anyway.
[Rant: Off]

    The certification requirements have been posted to this list. If anyone
would like to read my comments
as a wrench and IPP member, please e-mail me off-list and I will send them
to you. Meanwhile, if you haven't done so, please read what Bob-O and Eric
Smiley have posted. IMHO their words are pretty right on.

Allan at Positive Energy
to e-mail me off-list:
Allan at positiveenergysolar.com

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