MODULE II Solar energy technology Page 4

2. The initial and continuing training of service technicians in solar energy technology

The increased customer demand for environment protecting energy technologies, especially for solar energy technology, makes it compellingly necessary to adapt the initial and continuing training in the solar, heating and air-conditioning sector to the new requirements. Very often the entrepreneur or company owner was exclusively responsible for the customer advisory, sales and planning of solar energy installations, particularly in small and medium sized companies. The reason for this was primarily that the service technicians or skilled workers of the respective companies simply did not have the technical knowledge or did not receive the corresponding continuing training to also be able to do these jobs. The currently occurring rapid changes of the basic economic conditions in the sector however, make it urgently necessary that especially the service technicians are being trained appropriately. So, they not only have to be able to install and maintain new technologies but in the near future they also should be able to secure valuable additional orders for their company through competent customer advisory at their work place or in the customer's home.

For these reasons the highest goal of the continuing training measures of this project is to provide the service technicians with all the knowledge and skills they need in order to being able to completely process a customer order on their own.

In general terms, the processing of a solar energy technology order includes the following steps:

• Make the customer aware of the company's range of solar energy technology products and services.
  
• Advise the customer thoroughly.
  -> This can either be done in the company if the customer visits e.g. the company's product exhibition rooms or in the home of the customer if e.g. the service technician has to carry out a service repair job there.
  -> For a competent customer advisory above all special technical knowledge is required but also one has to know and has to be able to tell the customer how emission reductions of harmful substances can be achieved with the new technology. Also, one has to be able to compare the efficiency of solar energy technology with the one of other energy producing technologies.
  
• After the customer has made an order, information materials about different systems and devices have to be gathered from different manufacturers and suppliers.
• With the help of particular check lists project specific data is collected at the location where the systems and devices have to be installed.
• Special computer simulation programmes are being used to e.g. select the right collector type for the project, to select the right size of storage tanks and pumps and to select the suitable regulator units and pipes. With such simulation programmes also the so called "solar coverage rate" as well as the achievable emission reductions can be determined. This information is not only important from a technical point of view but also can be used to support the own argumentation in a customer advisory conversation.
• Based on the collected project data and on the results of the computer simulations the whole installation is being designed in co-operation with the customer using components from different manufacturers.
• It follows the assembly and installation of the system or device. Then everything is put into operation. Afterwards, the installations have to be checked and maintained at a regular basis.

All these points will at least briefly be discussed in the following text. The most important points will be discussed more in detail.