If you already hold a trade, this is what is new.

An electrician moving into solar is not a beginner, and being taught as one is irritating and expensive. The honest division is that perhaps a third of a PV course is already yours and the rest is genuinely new — but the new third includes one thing that catches experienced trades out badly.

What you already know

Conductor sizing and ampacity. Raceways and terminations. Grounding and bonding principles. Code structure and how to read it. Working safely around energised equipment. Load calculations. None of that needs reteaching, and in the self-paced course you can move through those modules quickly.

What is genuinely new

• The source behaves differently. An array is a current-limited source whose voltage rises as it gets colder, and whose output is a curve rather than a value. IV and power curves, temperature coefficients, and maximum power point tracking are new concepts, not familiar ones renamed.
• String sizing. Matching an array to an inverter's input voltage window across the full temperature range at a specific site. This is the real engineering content of PV work and it is where the examination's marks sit. A worked example →
• Mechanical and weatherproofing. Attachment to a structure you are not allowed to leak, in wind and snow loading. This is closer to roofing than to electrical.
• Interconnection and the filing path. Net metering applications, utility requirements, what the inspector wants to see on a PV job specifically.
• Commissioning and fault-finding on DC strings. Finding one bad connection in a series circuit spread over a roof.

The thing that catches experienced trades out

It is not a calculation. It is that you cannot switch an array off. An AC habit — open the breaker, prove dead, work — does not transfer, because the conductors from the array are energised whenever light falls on the modules, and covering them does not reliably make them safe. And DC arcs do not self-extinguish, because there is no zero crossing for them to extinguish at. More experienced people get hurt on this than inexperienced ones, because the inexperienced have no habit to override.

What to buy

Self-paced, forty hours, $799 CAD is the right product for most working trades: skip what you know, slow down on design, and do it around work. Add the question bank at $210 if the examination is the goal rather than the knowledge. The four live days at $1,575 make sense mainly when an employer is paying or when you want it finished inside a month.

Where the credential fits for you

If you hold a provincial Construction Electrician certificate, both PV credentials are open to you: CSA Group's solar specialism, which requires that certificate, and NABCEP PV Associate, which does not. The CSA one speaks more directly to Canadian employers; NABCEP travels further and is quicker. Plenty of people hold both. The comparison →

Common questions