Solar energy industry needs licensing standards

By Tom Snyder

As the Iowa Legislature is about to convene its 2010 session, I would expect and hope to finally have serious thought and action given to the impact that solar thermal and solar photovoltaics (PV) licensing could have on Iowa's finances.

Besides helping Iowa's finances and business growth, licensing legislation would help protect the consumer from shoddy installations and dangerous designs, and overpriced and inferior equipment. After 37 years in the solar business, I understand that this subject is finally “now on the radar” at the Office of Energy Independence.

First, the business benefits from solar licensing:

There are currently more than 1,000 nationally certified solar professionals in the U.S. There have been only two in Iowa for the last three years. Iowa will never get any solar thermal or PV small manufacturing businesses to locate here without recognition of the solar profession as an honest trade.

The business climate in Iowa for solar and PV installers is also non-existent because the trade is not legally recognized. Wisconsin, California, Colorado, New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan are examples where a tremendous amount of solar thermal and PV is occurring because solar is recognized as a legal profession.

An added dollar benefit would be the amount of tuition to Iowa Community Colleges from potential solar professionals. I am teaching at Kirkwood Community College two classes this winter on solar thermal design and installation, but there is no state category to license these professionals.

In other surrounding states, these solar professionals are desired and hired immediately.

Second, consumer education and protection:

There has been a national solar code since the 1970s. A plumber or electrician in Iowa could be fined or worse if he did not do work according to existing national codes. As in the national electric or plumbing and heating codes, the consumer deserves a solar project to be installed appropriately. There are no requirements for any type of renewable-energy installers or installations.

The thinking in Iowa appears to be that solar should be not licensed at all or maybe listed under existing plumbing and electrical, but not required. This thinking is backward. Plumbing and electrical codes do not begin to cover solar. After 37 years, I am still called to diagnose and fix problems because some licensed plumber thought he could fix an existing solar thermal domestic hot water system.

I am not one who usually thinks government interference is a good thing. From what I have seen over the last 37 years, solar thermal (and small PV and wind projects) need some serious state guidelines and licensing to help the solar industry in Iowa grow.

Iowa regulators and legislators should be embarrassed for long ignoring the big impact solar energy can have on a person's energy bill and the state's economic growth. If state solar licensing and classes are ever enacted, hopefully solar will then be accepted as a separate profession based on training, knowledge and experience. All solar projects then would require inspection so the Iowa consumer will not be overcharged, sold a “bill of goods” just for going green, and the project is guaranteed done by a professional who knows what he is doing.

What a waste to take another 37 years to reinvent the wheel that other states have already done long ago.

Tom Snyder of Dyersville is co-founder of Iowa Renewable Energy Association and is a past member of the organization's board of directors.