Green Education Consortium of 9 Solar Energy Training Providers

ONTILITY has announced that on October 8, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded one of the nine Solar Installer Instructor grants to the South-Central Solar Training Consortium lead by Houston Community College System (HCCS) and based solely on the ONTILITY solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal curricula.

In addition to HCCS and ONTILITY, the consortium partners include: Delgado Community College, New Orleans, LA; American Youth Works Charter School, Austin, TX; Louisiana Technical College – Lafayette, LA; Houston Works – YouthBuild, Houston, TX; Cedar Valley College, Lancaster, TX; Louisiana CeanTech Network, Kenner, LA; and New Orleans YouthBuild, New Orleans, LA. The geographical scope of this partnership includes enhancing and extending solar training to community colleges and vocational high schools in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

This five-year, $3.57M award, is jointly funded by DOE and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). The program will create a network of nine solar training regional resources and training providers. Among the primary goals, as identified by the DOE, is “to accelerate market adoption of solar technologies by ensuring that high-quality installations are standard and to create sustainable jobs within the solar installation industry.”

“The opportunity to participate at the regional and national levels in the standardization of solar training is nothing short of phenomenal. ONTILITY is proud and excited to be the sole industry partner in the South-Central Consortium and is eager to advance and enhance solar training at academic institutions throughout the region,” said Tom Pash, CEO of ONTILITY. “With our long-standing experience in providing top-quality solar training to industry and educational partners, we are excited to leverage our ’shovel ready’ program to quickly and effectively scale up the solar installation workforce in the South-Central region. There is considerable need for not only an industry-approved, well-trained solar workforce, but also, as DOE identified, the time is ripe for standardizing solar training in the U.S. ONTILITY looks forward to working with all of the consortium members to realize our collective solar training and solar workforce goals for the U.S.”