Description
Research, design, develop, test, or oversee the procurement, interconnection, and installation of photovoltaic power systems, components, and plant controls for residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications.
- • Confer with engineers, customers, utilities, or AHJs to define PV project requirements and interconnection.
- • Design, implement, maintain, or improve PV arrays, inverters, transformers, switchgear, balance-of-system components, and plant controls.
- • Use PV modeling and CAD tools to perform system design, energy yield, and shading assessments.
- • Direct or coordinate construction, installation, commissioning, maintenance, documentation, and testing to meet codes and utility requirements.
- • Perform detailed electrical calculations, including string sizing, ampacity, voltage drop, fault current, and protection settings.
- • Plan or execute research and pilot studies applying PV, power electronics, and grid-integration principles.
- • Prepare technical specifications and procurement packages for modules, inverters, switchgear, meters, and monitoring systems.
- • Supervise, mentor, or train project team members and contractors.
- • Evaluate and qualify vendors’ modules, inverters, trackers, and balance-of-system components.
- • Oversee project schedules, budgets, risks, and quality for solar plants.
- • Produce single-line diagrams, layout drawings, protection schemes, and SCADA/telemetry specifications to meet codes and utility standards.
- • Support capital planning and pro formas for new PV plants, repowering, or major upgrades.
- • Compile performance data and write reports on energy yield, performance ratio, degradation, and availability.
- • Gather and analyze irradiance, weather, site, and grid data to model production and interconnection impacts.
- • Conduct site assessments and field tests to diagnose underperformance, grounding issues, and equipment faults.
- • Optimize designs to maximize energy yield and minimize LCOE through layout, shading analysis, and DC/AC ratio selection.
- • Develop solar-plus-storage or hybrid microgrid solutions and grid-support functions such as volt/VAR and frequency response.
- • Integrate PV systems with batteries, EMS/BMS, EV charging, and building or utility controls.
- • Estimate labor, materials, balance-of-system, and interconnection costs for bids and budgets.
- • Investigate customer issues, warranty claims, or safety incidents and implement corrective actions.
- • Inspect completed installations and oversee commissioning, acceptance testing, and compliance with NEC, IEEE, and utility standards.
- • Develop plant controller logic, inverter settings, and SCADA configurations to control PV output, curtailment, and reactive power.
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O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
