When Electrical Apprenticeship Training Doesn’t Align With the Solar Jobsite

What happens when the skills you learn in school don’t match the job you actually get? For many electricians entering the solar industry, this disconnect can be very real and very frustrating.

That’s exactly what came up during a conversation on the SunCast Media stage at the NABCEP Conference in Reno, where HeatSpring’s Brittany Heller spoke with Jenny Conrardy and Riley Neugebauer, two licensed electricians working in solar. Their insights reveal an unfortunate gap between traditional electrical apprenticeship education and the realities of renewable energy work.

The Electrician Workforce Landscape

Here’s the reality of the electrician workforce. About 7,000 new electricians enter the field each year, while roughly 10,000 are retiring or leaving, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s a significant workforce shortage right when we need electricians most.

The timing couldn’t be more challenging. After nearly two decades of flat electricity demand, the U.S. is entering a period of substantial growth. The Energy Information Administration forecasts electricity consumption will grow at an average rate of 1.7% per year through 2026, with commercial and industrial sectors leading the charge at 2.6% and 2.1% respectively. Much of the new generating capacity being built to meet this demand? Solar and battery storage facilities.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the electrician profession to grow 11% from 2023 to 2033—much faster than most other jobs. With renewable energy expanding rapidly to meet rising electricity demand, that gap between what’s taught in electrical apprentice training and what happens on solar job sites becomes a real problem.

The Textbook vs. Reality Problem

Jenny’s experience really drives this point home. She explained how that first day of apprenticeship school set expectations that didn’t match her solar career at all:

Transcript below.

Jenny: I’d like to concur with Riley on the experience with the school program, not necessarily including solar as part of their curriculum. The very first day of my apprenticeship program in school, we received a book. The first line of the first chapter in the book said, “as an electrician, you’ll deal with parallel connections. You’ll almost never deal with series connections, and you’ll never deal with series parallel connections.”

In solar, we do that every day, so the program wasn’t necessarily tailored to the solar field specifically, and so having that gap between the two was a little bit difficult to try to put the pieces together.

Brit: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. It’ll be interesting to see over time as we have more renewables on the grid, do these programs change and evolve to meet what I presume will be happening with the grid in the future?

What This Means Moving Forward

Think about it from an apprentice’s perspective. You’re dedicating your time and energy to learn the trade, but the fundamentals you’re being taught don’t align with the work you’re actually doing. That’s frustrating for new electricians and potentially discouraging for those considering or already in solar careers. It’s not that traditional electrical education is bad – it’s that programs need to be inclusive of renewable energy realities as well.

With electricity demand surging and renewable energy leading the capacity expansion, we need educational programs that prepare electricians for the work they’ll actually be doing. Bridging this education gap means building the skilled workforce we’ll need to meet the growing demand for clean energy infrastructure.

Check out HeatSpring’s new partnership with Energize US to bring you all of the classroom training you need to run a 4-year electrical apprenticeship program. 

To catch the full conversation with Jenny and Riley, head over to SunCast Media.