Solar Energy Systems Engineer Perform site-specific engineering analysis or evaluation of energy efficiency and solar projects involving residential, commercial, or industrial customers. Design solar domestic hot water and space heating systems for new and existing structures, applying knowledge of structural energy requirements, local climates, solar technology, and thermodynamics.
Solar Energy Systems Engineer is Also Know as
In different settings, Solar Energy Systems Engineer is titled as
- Consulting Engineer
- Engineer
- Photovoltaic System Designer (PV System Designer)
- Power Systems Engineer
- Project Engineer
- Research Engineer
- Solar Design Engineer
- Solar Designer
- Solar Energy Engineer
- Solar Engineer
Education and Training of Solar Energy Systems Engineer
Solar Energy Systems Engineer is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Solar Energy Systems Engineer
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Education Required for Solar Energy Systems Engineer
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Degrees Related to Solar Energy Systems Engineer
- Bachelor in Engineering, General
- Associate Degree Courses in Engineering, General
- Masters Degree Courses in Engineering, General
- Bachelor in Applied Engineering
- Associate Degree Courses in Applied Engineering
- Masters Degree Courses in Applied Engineering
- Bachelor in Architectural Engineering
- Associate Degree Courses in Architectural Engineering
- Masters Degree Courses in Architectural Engineering
- Bachelor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Associate Degree Courses in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Masters Degree Courses in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Bachelor in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
- Associate Degree Courses in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
- Masters Degree Courses in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
- Bachelor in Water Resources Engineering
- Associate Degree Courses in Water Resources Engineering
- Masters Degree Courses in Water Resources Engineering
Training Required for Solar Energy Systems Engineer
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Solar Energy Systems Engineer in different industries are
- Solar Sales Representatives and Assessors
- Energy Engineers, Except Wind and Solar
- Solar Energy Installation Managers
- Solar Thermal Installers and Technicians
- Wind Energy Engineers
- Electrical Engineers
- Wind Energy Development Managers
- Energy Auditors
- Mechanical Engineers
- Electronics Engineers, Except Computer
- Solar Photovoltaic Installers
- Wind Turbine Service Technicians
- Geothermal Production Managers
- Hydroelectric Production Managers
- Geothermal Technicians
- Biofuels/Biodiesel Technology and Product Development Managers
- Hydroelectric Plant Technicians
- Water/Wastewater Engineers
- Fuel Cell Engineers
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologists and Technicians
What Do Solar Energy Systems Engineer do?
- Test or evaluate photovoltaic (PV) cells or modules.
- Review specifications and recommend engineering or manufacturing changes to achieve solar design objectives.
- Perform thermal, stress, or cost reduction analyses for solar systems.
- Develop standard operation procedures and quality or safety standards for solar installation work.
- Design or develop vacuum tube collector systems for solar applications.
- Provide technical direction or support to installation teams during installation, start-up, testing, system commissioning, or performance monitoring.
- Perform computer simulation of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation system performance or energy production to optimize efficiency.
- Develop design specifications and functional requirements for residential, commercial, or industrial solar energy systems or components.
- Create plans for solar energy system development, monitoring, and evaluation activities.
- Create electrical single-line diagrams, panel schedules, or connection diagrams for solar electric systems, using computer-aided design (CAD) software.
- Create checklists for review or inspection of completed solar installation projects.
- Design or coordinate design of photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal systems, including system components, for residential and commercial buildings.
- Conduct engineering site audits to collect structural, electrical, and related site information for use in the design of residential or commercial solar power systems.
Qualities of Good Solar Energy Systems Engineer
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Tools Used by Solar Energy Systems Engineer
- Abrasion testers
- Accelerated weathering machines
- Adhesion testers
- Apparent power meters
- Atomic absorption spectrometers
- Auger electron spectrometers
- Bench ovens
- Chronopotentiometers
- Compression testers
- Copy machines
- Coulometers
- Creep testers
- Current versus voltage IV curve tracers
- Data loggers
- Differential scanning calorimeters
- Digital imaging microscopes
- Digital pattern generators
- Digital resistance thermometers
- Direct current DC power supplies
- Electrometers
- Electron beam evaporators
- Electron energy loss spectrometers
- Energy dispersive x-ray spectrometers EDS
- Environmental chambers
- Fatigue testers
- Field emission scanning electron microscopes FESEM
- Film extruders
- Flexure testers
- Flow coulometric detectors
- Fluorescence spectrophotometers
- Focused ion beam FIB systems
- Fourier transform infrared FTIR spectrometers
- Goniometers or arthrometers
- Graphics tablets
- Hand calculators
- Hardness testers
- High-precision balances
- Hipot testers
- Humidity ovens
- Impact testers
- Inductance capacitance resistance LCR meters
- Inert atmosphere glove boxes
- Infrared cameras
- Ion beam assisted deposition IBAD systems
- Ion mills
- Irradiance detectors
- Laboratory tube furnaces
- Laser facsimile machines
- Laser printers
- Lasers
- Lifetime testers
- Liquid chromatographs LC
- Load frames
- Mask aligners
- Mass spectrometers
- Mechanical shakers
- Meggers
- Micromanipulators
- Moisture analyzers
- Optical compound microscopes
- Optical scanners
- Permeation testers
- Personal computers
- pH meters
- Phase angle meters
- Photoluminescence spectrometers
- Photovoltaic array simulators
- Picoammeters
- Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition PECVD systems
- Plotters
- Polarographic analyzers
- Potentiostats
- Power quality meters
- Pull testers
- Pyranometers
- Raman spectrometers
- Reactive power meters
- Recording ammeters
- Reflectance spectrometers
- Rheometers
- Scanning electron microscopes SEM
- Scanning probe microscopes SPM
- Shear testers
- Solar simulators
- Spectrocolorimeters
- Spectrophotometers
- Spectroscopic ellipsometers
- Spin coaters
- Sputtering systems
- Strain gauges
- Surface profilometers
- Tensile testers
- Thermal cyclers
- Thermocouples
- Thermogravimetric analyzers
- Thermopiles
- Transmission electron microscopes TEM
- Ultrasonic cleaners
- Ultraviolet UV exposure units
- Vacuum evaporators
- Vacuum laminators
- Vacuum ovens
- Video cameras
- Voltmeters
- X ray diffractometers
- X-ray photoelectron spectrometers
Technology Skills required for Solar Energy Systems Engineer
- Ansys Fluent
- Aurora HelioScope
- Autodesk AutoCAD
- Autodesk AutoCAD LT
- Autodesk Revit
- Bash
- C++
- Computer aided design and drafting CADD software
- Dassault Systemes SolidWorks
- Data acquisition software
- Data visualization software
- Database software
- Debugging software
- Energy-10
- ETAP
- Finite element method FEM software
- Geographic information system GIS systems
- Global positioning system GPS software
- HOMER Micropower Optimization Model
- IMSI TurboCAD
- JavaScript
- Linux
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Project
- Microsoft Visio
- Microsoft Visual Basic
- Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications VBA
- Microsoft Word
- National Instruments Compact FieldPoint System
- National Instruments LabVIEW
- Optical Physics Technologies SUN_CHART
- Oracle Hyperion
- PV Optics
- PVsyst
- Python
- R
- Regional Energy Deployment System ReEDS
- RETScreen
- Salesforce software
- Simple Model of the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer of Sunshine SMARTS
- Simulation software
- Software development tools
- Solar Advisor Model
- Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment SWERA
- SOLAR-2
- SolTrace
- Structured query language SQL
- Supervisory control and data acquisition SCADA software
- The MathWorks MATLAB
- Trimble SketchUp Pro