The [RE-wrenches]

Smitty smitty at aaasolar.com
Tue Jul 23 15:55:50 PDT 2002


Wrenches, my partner and I, along with several colleagues from around
the country have been looking into the ramifications of the certified
"practitioner" program. The following is what we have found and some of
our groups opinions and conclusions. The attachments would not go
through, as per Topica's rules. If you would like to see them, contact
me off list. Respectfully, Smitty.

The real story about Certified Practitioners:

A few years ago, 1996 according to their website, Mark Fitzgerald
(Institute for Sustainable Power - ISP) met with some bankers in
international finance. They told him they were ready to fund
photovoltaics (PV) big time ($50 Million plus) if there were some way
that installations could be verified by a third party. The bankers were
fully aware of the poor regulatory infrastructure in developing
countries and they needed regulations to feel comfortable about their
loans. Mark formed his organization to address this need in countries
with poor regulatory infrastructure.

California instituted high rebates for grid tied solar system in 2001 to

alleviate the relatively local energy crisis on the utility grid. Poor
controls and high rebates equals some bad installs.

Fitzgerald enlisted the support of Les Nelson (California SEIA) and
others in 2001. Les is now chair of the North American Board of
Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). Somehow all the usual yes
people with the common middle initial R (for Regulation) appear on the
board and technical committee. A few new people and one new giant given
below. They do not think small (North America) and the new suitable term

"Practctitioner" means that they intend to eventually regulate virtually

everyone in the distribution chain of  both PV and solar thermal. The
makeup of the board indicates this. (Below cut and pasted from the
attached press release)

"The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP)
thanks the over 300 organizations and individuals that responded to our
request for comments on the draft certification requirements for
photovoltaic installers.  As you may know, we look forward to developing

a similar program for solar thermal installers in the future."

The definition of practitioner, cut and pasted without revision from an
e-mail of Wendy Parker, coordinator, NABCEP is directly below. The
entire message is attached if you think this is somehow taken out of
context.

"Finally, you asked where the term "Certified Practitioner" came from.
The
term "practitioner" was chosen because the original vision of the effort

was
to eventually develop (according to market need) separate voluntary
certifications for installers, designers, and/or inspectors.  The term
"practitioner" encompasses all aspects of renewable energy work, not
just
installers."

They send out a call for comments (survey) for their program certifying
PV installers (wrenches).  This is the initial phase of their overall
regulatory scheme. The only real effort to notify those whom they intend

to regulate is through John Wiles in the wrenches chat group (again read

Wendy's attached e-mail), a good choice, most wrenches are fed up with
Wiles. No cracking of phone books, no internet searches, they keep this
quiet, but not hidden. The results of the survey speak for themselves
and are cut and pasted from their original Excel file. (from Wendy,
which is also attached for your review should you question this) Be
aware the file has two tabs at the bottom left and you will want to
click on the one called "Detail" to verify the below, Wendy sent the
file so that it opened on my computer on the tab called "Quotes", don't
know why.

Respondents from the "over 300" the press release reflects

280 Union
 46 Install
  4 Assoc
  7 Policy
  2 Eductr
  7 Other
  9 Wrenches

Union is given in the survey as the IBEW, JATC and NECA
IBEW International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
JATC - Joint Apprentice and Training Committee - the education arm of
the IBEW
NECA - National Electrical Contractors Association -  (Following taken
from their home page)
The National Electrical Contractors Association, Local chapter managers,

assisted by NECA's staff in National office and the field,  negotiate
and administer labor agreements with local unions of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

They summarize with a column called Practitioners, we assume this is
wrenches and installers but are not sure.

There were more than 200 questions on the response list in the Excel
file and almost all are just administrative stuff with few mixed votes
going all over the place.

The big question:

Certification valuable - Unqualified yes -  Practitioners 9 - Union 28 -

Engineers/Educators 1

Certification not valuable - Practitioners 6 - Union 2


Other thought provoking questions and answers from respective groups:

Provide exams and training in conjunction with IBEW/JATC - Union - 103
yes - 0 from other groups

Training and prerequisites make skills evaluation unnecessary - Union
yes 146, 0 from other groups

Skills evaluation logistically unreasonable, costly or inaccessible -
Union - 173 Practitioners - 8

Entry requirements reasonable - Union 190, Practitioners 10
Engineers/Educators - 1

Entry requirements unreasonable - Union 0, Practitioners -19, Policy
makers 6, Engineers/Educators 6

>From this they produce the press release and play it out as support for

the program. This is the standard answer for anyone asking about the
program. The NABCEP is about to release a second draft of the program
shortly, supposedly based on the results.

That is where this is now, mid July, 2002 - here is where we think it is

going if these people get their way.

This program will be heavily lobbied by the group to be included into
any new tax incentives for solar, PV or thermal. That is why they are
probably telling the truth about the program always being voluntary -
driver's licenses are voluntary too.

Once this finds its way into future legislation, rules and regulations,
they will go after the manufacturers, if they haven't started already.
They will leverage, a word they well know, the participation of the
wrenches, the unions, the national solar association, Sandia Labs, NREL,

FSEC and OSHA, all except OSHA represented on the board. The
manufacturers will be pressurized to make their whole distribution chain

"certified practitioners."
They know that without the support of the real Solar Industry and with
only the unions in this program, it doesn't have a chance of success.
Its bad politics for the Labs et al to support only union labor. Unions
only won't wash for  tax incentives. Unions don't care one bit if
designers and dealers have to be practitioners to qualify for tax
incentives. If it's unions only, no go. With the wrenches and
independents (the real industry) on board, the grand regulatory scheme
will take a few years, lots of name recognition for the NABCEP label
etc. but we feel surely that's where they have their sights - they
thought up the name - NORTH AMERICAN board of
CERTIFIED ENERGY PRACTITIONERS

All this might seem to be a stretch of the imagination but why else
would they proceed as they have with the name they have chosen. The only

way this becomes self sustaining is for wide and pressured participation

- tax incentives will provide the vehicle for the multiple
certifications of various segments of  the industry to be mandatory.

So what's wrong with this movie if you haven't seen it already.

Reason one - We don't need it! We have stringent codes, Code books, and
most states have a close watch on the trades through already existing
regulatory infrastructures. How did American trades people , masons,
carpenters, ironworkers, electricians, plumbers, HVAC mechanics, and
roofers build all of the houses and buildings in this country that are
arguably the safest in the world without the NABCEP and installers and
designers that were " CERTIFIED PRACTITIONERS" ?

Reason two -  Regulation like this should be left up to government,
subject to periodic review and if necessary, pressure from the polling
place.

Reason three - It won't work. The Solar Thermal Industry already has the

forerunner of this "not for profit" regulatory scheme - The Solar Rating

and Certification Corporation, that was formed in the early eighties to
stop abuses when there was a forty per cent federal tax credit. The
organization has certified plastic junk in the past that all
professionals knew would fall apart in a short time. They won't
decertify anybody because they are afraid of attorneys and litigation.
The SRCC was in place, in the tax credit era, and did nothing to stop
poor installs. Jack Warner and Byard Wood of  the SRCC, are listed as on

the NABCEP board.

Reason four - Why the overwhelming union involvement in the survey and
board. Installations are being locked down in Los Angeles right now.
Articles in the LA papers reflect that the LA Department of water and
power claims that they're doing it because they need training to deal
with PV grid tied installations. Back to Mr. Fitzgerald and the
Institute for Sustainable Power, check out their website, they are at
the top in the training chain. It's a money deal. The unions have three
seats on the NABCEP board, Mark Ayers, representing the IBEW, A.J.
Pearson representing the JATC, and Geary Higgins, representing the NECA.

Reason five - Even if we needed it, and it would work and we could trust

the people eventually administering it, the makeup of their board and
technical committee hardly represents the industry they wish to
regulate. John Wiles, Southwest Technology Development Institute, on the

technical committee, and Ward Bower, Sandia National Labs on the board,
are already well known for heavy handed, unneeded regulation of the PV
industry. A regulation board of this magnitude needs to be,
overwhelmingly, the people from the industry being regulated, not
comprised of employees from organizations who derive all their revenue
from the government. If the government wants to regulate, they will do
so and not by and through a few individuals selected by who knows whom.

The board members can all be verified -
http://www.ispq.org/NABCEPBoard.html or the attached Master4pg.702.doc
file.
Les Nelson was voted in as the Chair of the Board in the October 1, 2001

board meeting, with Peter Lowenthal as Vice Chair. Both will serve a
one-year term. (the previous about the two thermal guys was cut from the

.doc file) The board members and technical committee members on the web
site, the one on the wrenches list and the one in the this doc file
don't all match - maybe some have see the light.

Do you want to be required  to be a certified energy practitioner in
addition to the government regulatory hassle that already exists from
being a manufacturer, dealer, distributor or installer?

If not, here are a few names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. If you

don't want this in the future of our industry, they need to hear about
it, LOUD and CLEAR. Forward this, with the attachments for verification,

to as many industry people as possible and we will focus on the real
industry. If you send an e-mail to any of the below and we encourage you

to have your voice heard, please copy the person who sent the e-mail to
you  and  assinc1 at qwest.net
Opinions can then be tracked by someone other than them - we already
know from the following, also cut and pasted from Wendy's e-mail, that
their idea of "industry" is quite different from ours.

"The board members sent the call out to their
contact lists, and through the wonder of the Internet, the call was
spread
from there. But I'm sure we only barely scratched the surface, and we
were
focusing on the PV community"

Mark Fitzgerald - USA Tel: 303-683-4748  Fax: 303-470-8239
markfitz at ispq.org

Les Nelson - Board chair - (949) 713-3500 lnelson at westernrenewables.com

Wendy Parker - coordinator, NABCEP - wparker at ispq.org

Marlene Brown - Technical Committee - (505) 844-0032 mbrown at sandia.gov

Allen Sindelar - Technical Committee - allen at positiveenergy.com

John Wiles - jwiles at nmsu.edu

Ward Bower - (505)844-5206  fax  (505)844-6541 -WIBOWER at sandia.gov

This thing is important and needs you to express your opinion, it will
not be shelved on its own,  phone or e-mail, preferably both. If real
industry is against this and the NABCEP refuses to listen to reason, we
can and will go to our elected congress people and tell them about the
issue. Good issue for an election year.

Signed, The Practitioners








Subject: RE: Response to Solar Practitioner Certification concerns
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 09:45:05 -0600
From: "Wendy Parker" <wparker at ispq.org>
To: "Chuck Marken" <chuck at aaasolar.com>
CC: tom at ecs-solar.com, Barry_Brunye at goldlinecontrols.com,
sunearth at lava.net,
     sgorman at micropowerusa.com, smitty at aaasolar.com,
     lnelson at westernrenewables.com, aztecsolar at aol.com,
     phildeatsch at earthlink.net, dana at umasolar.com, solardude1 at aol.com,
     wparker at nabcep.org, gcarrison at attglobal.net, teamrio at windcraft.com

Dear Chuck (et al):

I am happy to comply with your request to see the comments from the
first
NABCEP Call for Comments.  Attached is the comment matrix, which we
released
in March following the first Call for Comments on PV Installer
certification
requirements. We solicited comments with the understanding that the
identity
of commentators would be confidential (to encourage free participation
from
the PV community), so I cannot release the names of those who commented,
but
you'll see the breakdown by stakeholder group.

We sent the Call for Comments out via email and online (on the Wrenches
discussion board, an ad-hoc discussion board for PV installers). I've
been
collecting the emails of interested renewable energy people throughout
my
year here working with NABCEP, so I apologize if you were not included
on
that first call for comments. The board members sent the call out to
their
contact lists, and through the wonder of the Internet, the call was
spread
from there. But I'm sure we only barely scratched the surface, and we
were
focusing on the PV community.

As you'll notice in looking at the Comment Matrix that is attached to
this
email, the vast majority of the respondants to our first Call for
Comments
were members of the organized labor community. Organized labor has been
extremely supportive of this effort. They do not hold a majority on the
board (by a long shot), they are not lobbying to make certification
mandatory, and they are not lobbying to limit certification to union
electricians or plumbers. On the contrary, they are interested in
opening
their JATCs to non-union people for classes (as they did in Reno in
conjunction with ASES). The unions are not interested in small projects
so
much as seeing the solar installation field grow to include more large
commercial solar installations where union installers can diversify.

Be that as it may, if the industry were to back out of the certification

development effort, the IBEW and NJATC representatives to the board have

made it clear that they will continue to move forward. Furthermore, OSHA
and
DOE have expressed interest in the NABCEP effort because it is oriented
toward practitioner safety and consumer protection. In fact, the entire
project was born in the mid-1990s after an international financier made
a
comment at a Rockefeller Foundation meeting that he'd like to fund more
solar projects, but could not do so without a 3rd party verification of
installer skills. Europe is moving ahead rapidly in developing
practitioner
standards and training programs, as are a network of other countries
including Morocco, China, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, and India.

Finally, you asked where the term "Certified Practitioner" came from.
The
term "practitioner" was chosen because the original vision of the effort
was
to eventually develop (according to market need) separate voluntary
certifications for installers, designers, and/or inspectors.  The term
"practitioner" encompasses all aspects of renewable energy work, not
just
installers.

For what it's worth, I've attached a PDF of a brochure NABCEP developed.
It
outlines the why's and how's of NABCEP, including some of the benefits
of
voluntary certification. In addition, I've attached the press release
that
NABCEP sent out to Jack Stone, e-clips and other news outlets following
the
first call for comments. I hope this and the comment matrix are helpful
in
answering your questions.

Sincerely,
Wendy Parker
NABCEP Project Coordinator
Institute for Sustainable Power
P.O. Box 260095
Highlands Ranch, CO 80163

Phone: (720) 344-0341
Fax: (303) 470-8239
email: wparker at nabcep.org
http://www.nabcep.org <http://www.nabcep.org>

-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Marken [mailto:chuck at aaasolar.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 12:01 PM
To: Wendy Parker
Cc: teamrio at windcraft.com; gcarrison at attglobal.net; wparker at nabcep.org;
solardude1 at aol.com; dana at umasolar.com; phildeatsch at earthlink.net;
aztecsolar at aol.com; lnelson at westernrenewables.com; smitty at aaasolar.com;
sgorman at micropowerusa.com; sunearth at lava.net;
Barry_Brunye at goldlinecontrols.com; tom at ecs-solar.com
Subject: Re: Response to Solar Practitioner Certification concerns

Wendy Parker
NABCEP Project Coordinator

Dear Wendy,

Thank you for your recent personal reply. I can well imagine the ranting

you and others may have received over this certification. Trades people
are well known for entirely too much cussing - when your hand slips on a

piece of tin or you bloody your knuckles from a ill fitting wrench in
foul weather the words seem to have a voice of their own. I am guilty of

this myself but, even if the language is somehow unavoidable, it should
be left at the jobsite. It has no place in discussions like this and,
although I know I don't need to, apologize for any undue stress in
relations that others in my professions may have caused.

My questions about whom are the people that unequivocally support the
certification were not rhetorical. I and many others would really like
to know and since all of you seem to feel you have consensus of the
industry, I would think you have the numbers at your fingertips. In the
last three days, my partner, Smitty and I have talked to a number of
professionals throughout the United States. None can remember being
asked about this. Many are older hands, like me, and it could be we have

just forgotten. We realize that the individual names may be confidential

although I can't imagine why. But, the numbers by grouping should be
available to anyone interested. If you have not categorized the
responses and do not wish to do so, I fully understand.

If that is the case, we will have to consider that any statement to the
effect that the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners
has a majority consensus of the industry to be unsupported and
erroneous.

Would you please forward to me, at your earliest convenience, the
numbers by grouping. I am particularly interested in the number of
licensed professional installers, the group whose lives will be most
affected by the certification. How many supported it and how many
opposed it? The numbers of other groups such as government employees,
employees of the national labs, FSEC, universities, solar equipment
manufacturers and dealers and other solar support organizations would
also be helpful in quelling our discomfort with the "all inclusive" call

for comments.

By the way, could you please furnish me with the definition of an Energy

Practitioner? I've never heard of the term in my thirty plus years in
the construction trades and twenty plus years in the solar industry. If
the term is new, I cannot understand why it would be a good choice. Why
not Solar Installers or Energy Installers,  well recognized terms that
would not confuse the general public? Are there future plans for more
certifications for other segments of the industry or other energy
industries? These questions are also not rhetorical and an answer would
be both appreciated and helpful in understanding this program.

Please accept this request as respectfully formal in nature. Should you
require a signed hard copy, I will be happy to fax it, if acceptable, or

print this message and send it by overnight mail it if an original is
required. I wouldn't think that necessary and a timely and candid
response is in everyone's interest. Would you please also "reply to all"

in e-mail list in any answer to my request.

Thank you, in advance,

Chuck
Chuck Marken
AAA Solar Supply/SEMCO


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