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"beauty" adaptation of solar project in P.R. Time and time again, disaster after disaster, renewable energy has been a lifesaver.  The following articles talk about how a school in Puerto Rico has moved away from non-reliable utilities (which have been down since Hurricane Maria): Puerto Rico School Ditches Grid for Solar-plus-Storage (REW) The school's system is one of many newly created microgrids installed by sonnen Inc . One comment that caught my attention was: “The solar microgrid has had a very important impact on the community,” the school’s director, Alberto Melendez Castillo, said in an interview. “It has been very moving to see the students drinking cold water, eating fresh food and being able to work on computers powered by renewable energy.” This connects with me because it brings me back to my days of installation with GRID Alternatives .  Working with GRID, I knew immediately knew how impactful solar can be for a community in need.  It was

Knowledge Toolbelt - Energy Storage For the many students that have gone through any of my training, you may recall my emphasis on keeping battery/storage in your "knowledge toolbelt".  No matter what form of energy is used as a source, the person or company that solves the limitations with storage will be king. An article posted last week talks about Tesla and their efforts: Tesla Plans to Triple Battery Deployments in 2018 Tesla could be a bellwether to watch for the storage industry.  If that's the case, their big push for battery deployment is an indicator of where to steer your studies.  In this instance, battery storage technology. While much of the battery success for Tesla is in other countries, we can't ignore the value of seeing how other markets embrace the company's solutions like the Powerwall.  Similar to how other markets such as Europe are in a mature part of the photovoltaic product cycle, there are many opportunities to fig

Congratulations to the newest cohort to successfully complete the Intro to Retrofit training! Students learning proper lock-out/tag-out procedures At the retrofit site, CCC Placer - COMET room.  Safety Implemented! Installing wallpacks During this week's training, students learned how to properly retrofit fluorescent lighting.  At the retrofit site, the students performed removals of magnetic ballasts and fluorescent tubes.  As part of the retrofit, they were able to apply all that they were taught and install new electronic ballasts and LED lighting. The retrofit site proved to be a great learning ground with so many unique problems in almost every trough investigated.  Some of problems that the students identified, troubleshot or remedied included: different ballast configurations, broken tombstones, entire troughs without lighting, improper grounding, different wiring methods from previous installations, and even rooms with incorrectly pl

The Sierra College Wiring/Lighting Retrofit lab was built back in December 2017 in preparation for this week's Intro to Wiring training.  Thanks to Rob Katzenstein and Brian Hurd aka Mr H., the lab looks fantastic and will ultimately provide students an awesome setting to learn all about wiring and lighting retrofits.  Here's a few shots of the lab after construction: Mr H. and Rob Katzenstein - 12/12/17 Rob K. and me - 12/12/17 Fast forward to this week, the California Conservation Corps (CCC), with centers from Tahoe and Sacramento, is on site to receive their wiring training and they're doing an excellent job.  Some of the training provided this week include: switches (3-way/4-way), outlets (15A, 20A, switched, GFCI), main service panel wiring, specialty loads, doorbell and smoke detectors! This week of training is always a student favorite because of the amount of hands on training. Here are a few shots of the training: Great job with th