Solar equipment installers are trained

Initiative, led by Fundación Chile and supported by the Ministry of Energy, Innova Corfo, ACESOL, Gore Atacama and the Universidad Católica del Norte, aims to increase the number of qualified personnel in this area.

Ceremony for the presentation of job competency accreditation certificates in Santiago, will be held Thursday February 2 in Fundación Chile with the participation of the Energy Minister, Sergio del Campo.

Although Chile is noted for being a country with plentiful solar resources, the fact is that this kind of energy has not been developed – mainly because of the high cost of the solar panels. This situation has been changing, and the costs for the generation and use of solar energy have gone down, making its use more competitive. However, the lack of personnel qualified to install solar heating raised an alert. So, Fundación Chile, supported by the Ministry of Energy, Innova Corfo, ACESOL, Gore Atacama and the Universidad Católica del Norte, joined forces to undertake a training project, in order to increase the qualified personnel in the country who can install solar heating.

The initiative, that directly targets solar equipment installers was carried out in Copiapó, Antofagasta, Santiago and Concepción. Currently the project is in the closing stage, and certificates are being presented to the 43 people who passed the course.

In Santiago, the recognition ceremony was held Thursday February 2 in Fundación Chile’s auditorium, and included the participation of Sergio del Campo, the Energy Minister; Nicola Borregaard, manager of Fundación Chile’s Energy and Climate Change area; Yanet Bascuñán, coordinator of the Public Assets for Innovation section of Innova Corfo; and Carolina Fellay, director of Human Capital and Productivity of Fundación Chile’s Center for Innovation in Human Capital.

The Energy Minister highlighted the letter of navigation in energy topics presented by President Sebastián Piñera a few days ago. “One of the aims is to accelerate the participation of renewable energies in our energy grid and we are aware that to achieve this we have many challenges and things to improve, such as the system of transmission, the bidding mechanism and the incorporation of new players”, he explained. Sergio del Campo also noted that this is an irreversible process that will go on growing more every day and where trained people will fill an important role.

Nicola Borregaard, manager of Fundación Chile’s Energy and Climate Change area, stressed the importance of having trained human capital for the installation of solar heating. “We need to have qualified personnel to increase the use of solar energy and I hope that those who receive these certificates today will continue with the topic, and do thousands of these kinds of installations in our country”, she observed. She also invited the new solar panel installers to continue with their training, since technology advances by leaps and bounds and new and better tools are always appearing.

The people who took this course will be trained to install solar panels with clean and renewable energy, as an alternative to the traditional water heater. “It was pretty good and very technical. It also gave us detailed supportive tools that we hadn’t thought about, like, clothing, and how to respond with technical, but clear, arguments, in order to assure the clients”, explained Patricio Ibacache, who received his certificate in the Santiago ceremony.

The names and contact information of all those who received this Job Competencies accreditation certificate are in www.fundacionchile.cl