Oliver is not addressing one very important consideration that has an enormous affect on the power costs of Alternatives like Solar and Wind. That is reliability costs. Wind and Solar work well when conditions from mother nature are right. One very huge cost I must add in is the cost of keeping and maintaining another system to insure we have 24/7 reliability. The sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow. I now must endure the cost of the new system, AND the old. "Environmentalists" don’t like to include these costs.

I work in the west texas area a lot. Days may go by and I drive through the thousands windmills to the plant and they are producing zero. I have a friend that recently did some work at a huge solar ( Thousands of mirrors focused on collector type). The problem they are having with it is it cannot pass it’s design criteria for promised production because clouds keep going by and output dies. Nature is very pesky at times.

The above is why ALL solar and wind projects in use or in the pipeline are using billions of our tax dollars so these green energy corporations can get rich, We are not only subsidizing them up front, but then giving more tax subsidies to entice people to buy them! They will not stand on their own, and it will be a long time before they will, if ever. Nuclear Power is the ONLY one that can come close. Check it out. Learn math and Economics. Always include ALL variables when doing cost-effectiveness analysis.
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To complicate matters, the price of electricity from the grid varies widely between areas. For example, in the US prices range from high-cost jurisdictions such as Hawaii and California to lower-cost jurisdictions such as Wyoming and Idaho.

In a sunny island market such as Hawaii — with diesel-generated electricity, electric rates approaching US$0.30/kWh, and falling module prices — it makes considerable economic sense for consumers or utilities to install solar arrays, with the right infrastructure and regulations in place.

For similar reasons, a host of other markets — Italy, Spain, Australia, Germany, Japan, and the US (California, Texas) — are widely expected to achieve grid parity within the short to medium term.

Moreover, in some countries, wind power, landfill gas and certain forms of biomass generation are already lower-cost (on a per kWh basis) than electricity provided from the grid. In fact, "grid parity" has already been achieved in certain jurisdictions that continue to use feed-in tariffs (FiTs). For example, the generation costs from landfill gas systems in Germany are currently lower than the average electricity spot market price.

In remote areas electricity from solar photovoltaics (PV) can be cheaper than building new distribution lines to connect to the main transmission grid. This makes the notion of grid parity elusive.
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Do you want to install them? Do you want to do the pre installation engineering work? Do you want to work in semiconductor production?

You have not provided enough information as to what you are really wanting to do to allow your question to be answered.

If you just want to be an installer, I imagine just on the job training is required, but it would also pay the least.

>what courses I would need to take or whatever if I wanted to install them or work in semiconductor production.

Again, if you just want to be an installer, then on the job training may well be all you need.

If you want to work in semiconductor production, then your training could consist of getting an engineering degree of some sort (electrical, chemical, etc).

>Also what exactly is the pre-installation engineering work? Is it like what an electrician does?<

It could be, though it wasn’t what I thought of when I wrote it.

Before the solar system was installed on my home, a mechanical engineer had to look at the homes structure and determine that it was capable of holding the solar panels.

Then they took that information and a set of blue prints were generated by someone working on a CAD drawing system. They put all the info required by the local utility, the building inspectors and the installers onto the drawing and that is what all these people worked to while doing the install.

Now as far as the engineering side… there are engineers who are working to find cheaper materials or materials that more efficently convert light to engergy.

Yes, an electrician is also a very important person in the big picture too.

I see lots of people around here aim far to low as far as their career goals. I would hope you would go to school and take lots of science and math classes and aim for some of the higher paid engineering jobs.
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