Solar Heating Conference

TEC-SMART hosted the NABCEP Solar Heating Continuing Education Conference.

The conference was from Apr. 12 to Apr. 14, and was held to offer Continuing Education Credits to North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) aspiring installers to meet their Solar Heating Installer Certification eligibility requirements.

“Solar Thermal’s been around for thousands of years, the sun’s been there since the beginning,” said Frank Mace, a 1975 graduate in the ECM program.

Mace said, “There’s no bad renewable. We’re going to fund them all.”

Solar Thermal Water Heating is the practice of heating water by the sun and using it regularly from day to day.

Mace said, “One bad project wipes out a thousand good ones because the news outlets always focus on the mistakes before the successes.”

“Solar thermal has a lower initial investment and a quicker payback than photovoltaics. That’s why I’m interested in it,” said Jennifer Silkowitz, from the Business Development division of Be Solar Energy.

Sunnovations President and CTO, Arnoud Van-Houten, unveiled his company’s new invention, called the Ohm Solar Thermal Energy Monitoring System.

“It just launched this week last Tuesday and it’s a different kind of monitoring system for solar thermal with a sensor rather than a flow meter,” said Van-Houten.

“I’m from Cape Cod and I’m here to get my NABCEP Thermal Certificate as the required training to do work,” said Conrad Geyser from Cotuit Solar.

Geyser said, “I’m happy to be at such a great community college facility for a great event.”

Nationally recognized journalist, Vaughan Woodruff from Insource Renewables, said, “A company wants to see somebody who knows what they know but who also know what they don’t know yet and are willing to learn.”

Pool heating is the major application of this technology in the United States.

Dave Sizelove, President of Aquatherm Industries, said, “In the eighties, there was a 40 percent tax credit for solar thermal, which expired under Reagan and only six manufacturing companies stayed around.”