From the basic skills of a solar engineer to their day to day duties, they are extremely important in the race to reduce our dependency on gas and oil products and replace them with more sustainable energy sources. Solar energy seems to be one of the most popular forms of alternative energy and, with the growing need and desire to find alternative ways of producing energy, solar engineer jobs are increasing in demand as well.

Qualifications

Solar engineers usually have at least a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.

Skills

There are several required skills that are important to have if anyone is considering solar engineering as a possible future career. The average solar engineer must be self motivated, result oriented, and innovative. They must be willing and able to work in a team or independently. They must be able to meet targets and deadlines, estimate costs, and work within budget. The person must be able to participate and contribute to meetings or project discussions. 

Work duties

Solar engineers usually work closely with other engineers, clients and contractors to discuss existing engineering projects or develop new ones. They are responsible for preparing technical drawings and outlining specifications of electrical systems and making sure that the designs and installations meet the client's requirements and all the relevant safety regulations.

A solar engineer will also deal with specifications for equipment and materials needed for the project, and determine the requirements and specifications for purchase. They can also be in charge of overseeing the project in order to make sure that it is completed within budget and deadline. Usually they supervise the manufacturing and installation of electrical components, systems and equipment.

The day to day duties of a solar engineer are varied and many, depending on what project they may be working on. The solar engineer is responsible for designing systems that mount to outdoor structures and conducting the proper research on solar cell efficiency. Each of these tasks has a detailed set of procedures that must be followed.  The day to day tasks would entail planning, executing and documenting projects they are currently engaged in. They have to visualize and perform tests with the intent of reaching the objective. Experiments would involve substrate cleaning, coating, printing, thermal evaporation, device encapsulation and device testing. The solar engineer is also typically required to collect, analyze and arrange data in the proper format. Maintaining the laboratory notebooks and logs would also be a part of the engineer's duties. Preparing technical reports, progress reports, and submitting and presenting these reports is also mandatory. Monitoring supplies and inventory is another task that must be done daily. Even though the tasks vary from project to project, this is a basic overview of the more common procedures.