Your Guide to Renewing Your NABCEP Certification Recertification season has a way of sneaking up on you. One minute your NABCEP is brand new, the next you’re getting an email that your three years are almost up. The good news is that if you get ahead of… Continue reading “Your Guide to Renewing Your NABCEP Certification”
What Hiring Managers in Solar Want to See on Your Resume A lot of solar job seekers assume silence after an application means they weren’t qualified. Sometimes it just means the resume didn’t land the way it should have. Janet Gomez has spent 15 years in recruiting, eight of them specializing… Continue reading “What Hiring Managers in Solar Want to See on Your Resume”
What Is a Power Control System (PCS) and Why Does It Matter for Solar and Storage Installers? Power control systems are showing up more and more in solar, storage, and electrical infrastructure, but some practitioners haven’t encountered the term yet. Brian Mehalic breaks down what a PCS actually is and why it’s worth understanding now. Essentially, a… Continue reading “What Is a Power Control System (PCS) and Why Does It Matter for Solar and Storage Installers?”
The Missing Piece Between Hard Work and Career Growth In the solar trades, your work speaks for itself, or so the thinking goes. Jesse Callahan, Founding Director of Operations at Ironhead Solar, learned that’s not always true. Like many of us, she spent years believing that hard work was… Continue reading “The Missing Piece Between Hard Work and Career Growth”
The 2029 NEC Is Going to Look Very Different. Here’s What’s Coming. The 2026 National Electrical Code (NEC) revision cycle has come and gone, but the work of the code-making panels never really stops. The 2029 cycle is already well underway, public inputs have been submitted, and task groups are working through… Continue reading “The 2029 NEC Is Going to Look Very Different. Here’s What’s Coming.”
New Course: Foundational Concepts in Renewable Energy Bringing someone new onto your team or crew means getting them up to speed fast. Some foundational training skips the basics that experienced folks take for granted – things like what a kilowatt hour actually means, or how DC and… Continue reading “New Course: Foundational Concepts in Renewable Energy”
Common SCADA Problems O&M Teams Inherit and How to Fix Them When an O&M team takes over a utility-scale solar project, they’re inheriting whatever SCADA system the construction team left behind – for better or worse. Unfortunately, there can be loose connections, misconfigured device IDs, missing documentation, and more. These are… Continue reading “Common SCADA Problems O&M Teams Inherit and How to Fix Them”
New Course: Compliant Solar Array Wiring Bootcamp Wire management is the most common deficiency Janet Hughes has seen across thousands of solar installations. She’s just launched her new “Complaint Solar Array Wiring Bootcamp” course to fix that. Janet Hughes has been in the solar industry since 1988,… Continue reading “New Course: Compliant Solar Array Wiring Bootcamp”
Three 2026 NEC Changes That Might Surprise Experienced Solar Installers and Designers Every three years, a new edition of the National Electrical Code drops, and with it comes a set of changes that practitioners need to get up to speed on before they show up in the field. The 2026 version is… Continue reading “Three 2026 NEC Changes That Might Surprise Experienced Solar Installers and Designers”
SCADA Acronyms Explained: What Beginners Need to Know For those brand new to SCADA, one of the first walls you’ll hit is all the acronyms. Networking, communications, and cybersecurity each come with their own vocabulary, and SCADA sits at the intersection of all three. Here are a handful… Continue reading “SCADA Acronyms Explained: What Beginners Need to Know”
New Free Course: Introduction to Solar Systems with Batteries: Solar + Storage If you have new employees or apprentices joining your team, getting them up to speed on solar plus storage fundamentals just got easier. HeatSpring just released a brand-new, completely free course: Introduction to Solar Systems with Batteries: Solar + Storage,… Continue reading “New Free Course: Introduction to Solar Systems with Batteries: Solar + Storage”
What 30 Years in the Electrical Trade Taught Jason Brozen About Keeping Workers Safe In March 2026, HeatSpring’s Brian Hayden sat down with Jason Brozen at the NABCEP Conference in Milwaukee for a conversation on the Suncast Media stage. Jason is the Safety and Technical Training Manager at Tyndale, a master electrician with 30… Continue reading “What 30 Years in the Electrical Trade Taught Jason Brozen About Keeping Workers Safe “
New Course: 15-Hour PV and the 2026 National Electrical Code (NEC) from Sean White & Bill Brooks If you’ve taken a Sean White course before, you already know the drill: dense technical material, delivered with plenty of humor so you actually remember it. Sean has built a following of repeat learners who come back every code cycle… Continue reading “New Course: 15-Hour PV and the 2026 National Electrical Code (NEC) from Sean White & Bill Brooks”
What It’s Really Like to Write the NEC: Inside Code-Making Panel 4 with Solar Tech Collective Most people who work with the National Electrical Code (NEC) learn what it says. Very few people know why it says it. Rebekah Hren and Brian Mehalic of Solar Tech Collective are in that second group. Both serve as principal… Continue reading “What It’s Really Like to Write the NEC: Inside Code-Making Panel 4 with Solar Tech Collective”
New Course: Comprehensive 2026 NEC Requirements for Electrotech: PV, ESS, EVs, PCS, and More The team behind the new “Comprehensive 2026 NEC Requirements for Electrotech: PV, ESS, EVs, PCS, and More” course has spent years helping shape the National Electrical Code, not just applying it (although they do that plenty too). Solar Tech Collective’s… Continue reading “New Course: Comprehensive 2026 NEC Requirements for Electrotech: PV, ESS, EVs, PCS, and More”
Why Solar Professionals Should Care About Building Performance & Where to Start Brian Hayden of HeatSpring sat down with Nancy Kaplan, Director of Workforce Development at the Building Performance Institute (BPI), at the 2026 NABCEP Conference in Milwaukee to talk about the intersection of solar and home performance. The conversation covered why… Continue reading “Why Solar Professionals Should Care About Building Performance & Where to Start”
What’s New with NABCEP Credentials in 2026? Sean White Breaks It Down NABCEP credentials have always been the benchmark for solar and storage professionals, but 2026 is shaping up to be an interesting year for their credential landscape. The PV Associate exam has gotten a Job Task Analysis (JTA) update, the newer… Continue reading “What’s New with NABCEP Credentials in 2026? Sean White Breaks It Down”
New Free Course: Ace the Interview, Know Your Value, and Negotiate Like a Pro If you’ve ever accepted a job offer wishing you had pushed back on the salary, or left an interview unsure whether you actually communicated your value, this course is for you. Solar for Women just released a new free on-demand… Continue reading “New Free Course: Ace the Interview, Know Your Value, and Negotiate Like a Pro”
New Courses: Introduction to Hand Tools and Power Tools for Solar HeatSpring is excited to announce two new courses from Jenny Conrardy: Introduction to Hand Tools for Solar and Introduction to Power Tools for Solar. Who These Courses Are For These courses are built for new solar employees, apprentices, and career… Continue reading “New Courses: Introduction to Hand Tools and Power Tools for Solar”
What Does SCADA Connect on a Utility-Scale Solar Project? On a utility-scale solar project, SCADA connects three distinct parts of the system: the PV equipment, the substation, and the utility. Each layer often speaks a different protocol, and understanding how they fit together is foundational to working with these… Continue reading “What Does SCADA Connect on a Utility-Scale Solar Project? “