Saturday, March 24, 2012

Solar Training Program Leads to New Jobs for Affordable Housing Residents

Everyday Energy (everydayenergy.us) recently hosted an Introduction to Solar Photovoltaic Installation course for residents of Los Robles Apartments, an affordable housing community owned by Community Housing Works.

This two-day training is part of Everyday Energy's ongoing partnerships with their affordable housing clients to create training programs that help those hit hardest by the bad economy.

"We have partnered with our clients to create solar training programs that provide residents with employable skills in a growing industry, plus we are able to train and recruit new employees to work for our company," said Scott Sarem, CEO of Everyday Energy.

This introductory course provided participants with the general knowledge needed to work as Solar PV Installation Assistants and laborers and included both classroom and hands-on training. A heavy emphasis was placed on the basics of electricity, energy production, and safety. During the course, students practiced carrying solar panels, setting-up and climbing ladders and participated in a safety meeting.

As a result of this training, Everyday Energy hired three of the course participants to join their installation crew. Course participants are scheduled to begin work this week at Los Robles Apartments in Vista, CA.

"This project will produce 263,000 kWh of electricity annually and is especially significant to our newest crew members that live at Los Robles Apartments. They will be able to truly benefit from their installation work and share those benefits with their families and neighbors," said Chris Taylor, COO of Everyday Energy.

Everyday Energy
Based in Oceanside, Calif., Everyday Energy specializes in photovoltaic solar and energy efficiency projects for the Multi-family housing and multi-tenant commercial projects. Everyday Energy has designed, financed, and installed the most Multi-family Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) projects of any company in California.

SOURCE: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/28/prweb9233485.DTL

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