Embracing the green revolution
03 January 2012
From next month, Illinois Central College will be one of a handful of community colleges in the state to offer courses in solar-voltaic and solar-thermal technology as part of a programme on energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Those courses on electricity-producing and heating-producing solar panels will include "...everything from site survey to system installation," according to ICC instructor Steve Flynn.
The goal is to train students to become certified to install and maintain the panels. That means that along with classroom and lab work, students will end up heading outside on the East Peoria campus, where solar panels were put in place earlier this month, and completing installation of the panels.
"We believe in a very strong, hands-on bent," Flynn said. "Students will be literally gearing up with hard hats and drills."
When the solar array is fully wired in, it will provide power to the school; something that educators intend to measure to quantify, although they caution that it will just be a tiny amount of regular consumption there.
Because production costs on the solar devices are coming down and the panels are becoming more efficient, the programme designers hope there will be a market that continues to emerge for jobs in the industry.
"We want to stay ahead of that curve, we want to be ready as that demand is ramping up," Flynn added. Ideally, that will give students one more skill to help them in the job market.
"Most of the folks that are going to be getting this training are most of the folks who are headed into a traditional career path in the trades," stated Anthony Corso, ICC's Director of Green Building Programmes. "These courses give them new skills. Most so-called green jobs are adding the skills knowledge for existing careers. You can't outsource those green jobs; those jobs are here."
Michael Sloan, Dean of Agricultural and Industrial Technologies, commented: "We became more interested in energy efficiency and renewable energy in the last decade. Part of our role as a community college is to listen to the community and to try to understand where those jobs are. A lot of the trades are looking into energy efficiency."
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