Solar Thermal System Design, Installation and Maintenance Helper

Course Description

EEV 0203 Solar Thermal System Design, Installation and Maintenance Helper is a 300-hour career (clock-hour) course that trains a helper to assist with installing and maintaining solar thermal systems. These systems use the sun's heat, rather than its light, mainly for solar water heating and pool heating. The statewide record describes it as an occupational completion point (the first credential stage) of Florida career program X600300.

⚠⚠ Read this first: one public carrier, and the program behind it has been retired

• ⚠ Okaloosa Technical College (Fort Walton Beach), a public district technical college, is the only institution with this course active in the state course file, at 300 clock hours.
• ⚠⚠ Program X600300 no longer appears among Florida's current career and technical education frameworks. The state's current list includes a Solar Energy Technician apprenticeship, but not this solar-thermal program. The course may be taught out, or no longer scheduled. Ask Okaloosa Technical College whether it is enrolling before you plan around it.
• Solar photovoltaic (electric) training is far more common in Florida than solar thermal. Miami Dade College, for example, offers a Solar Energy Systems Specialist certificate. If your goal is solar work in general, look at photovoltaic programs too.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Explain how solar thermal collectors (flat-plate, evacuated-tube and pool collectors) capture and transfer heat.
• Identify the components of a solar water-heating system: collectors, storage tank, heat exchanger, pump, controller, valves and piping.
• Distinguish active and passive, and direct and indirect, system types and where each suits Florida conditions.
• Assist with site assessment: orientation, tilt, shading and roof condition.
• Assist with mounting collectors and running and insulating piping, following manufacturer instructions and the building code.
• Assist with filling, testing, commissioning and maintaining a system, and recognise common faults.
• Work safely at height and on roofs, around hot fluids and pressurised systems, and with hand and power tools.

Optional Outcomes

• Size a residential system for a household's hot-water demand.
• Explain freeze and overheat protection.
• Explain how solar thermal and photovoltaic systems differ in cost, efficiency and use.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Solar energy fundamentals and the solar resource in Florida
• Solar thermal collectors
• System types and components
• Site assessment
• Installation: mounting, piping, insulation, controls
• Commissioning and maintenance
• Safety: roofs, fall protection, hot fluids
• Codes, standards and permits

Optional Topics

• Pool heating
• System sizing and economics

Resources & Tools

• The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC, at the University of Central Florida, Cocoa). Under Florida's Solar Energy Standards Act (s. 377.705, F.S.), solar energy systems sold in Florida must meet its standards, and it publishes technical guidance on solar water heating.
• Solar Rating & Certification Corporation (SRCC/ICC-SRCC) collector and system ratings.
• The Florida Building Code (plumbing and energy volumes) and manufacturers' installation manuals.
• OSHA fall-protection standards for roof work.

Career Pathways

• Solar thermal installers and technicians (O*NET 47-4099.02, part of "construction and related workers, all other").
• Plumbers and their helpers (SOC 47-2152, 47-3015). Solar water heating is plumbing work. See this site's Plumber career path.
• Solar photovoltaic installers (SOC 47-2231), a larger and faster-growing occupation with overlapping skills.
• ⚠ Licensing: in Florida, installing solar systems is contractor work licensed by the DBPR Construction Industry Licensing Board, which licenses solar contractors. A helper works under a licensed contractor; the course does not license you.

Special Information

Offering Notes

Clock hours, not credits

This is a career-certificate course measured in clock hours (300), not college credits; the guide records 0 credits. ⚠ Clock-hour courses do not transfer as college credit toward an associate or bachelor's degree, although some colleges award credit for a completed career certificate through an articulation agreement.