The Solar Academy, by providing training for managers, engineers and operators, is a critical enabler for the photovoltaic industry.
The photovoltaic industry is booming, production growth in 2007 was 69% and sector revenues reached 17.2 billion US$. The sector has shown a consistent growth of 40% per year for the past 9 years. As new production capacity comes on line and is planned a major bottleneck to sustain this growth has revealed itself: Availability of trained personnel to manage and operate production.
Photovoltaic energy is one of the keys towards a transition to sustainable energy production. The cost of solar electricity is decreasing rapidly and fossil fuel prices keep going up, reaching new record highs almost daily. Grid parity (cost of solar generated electricity equal to cost of electricity from fossil fuel plants) is predicted within 10 years for most of Western Europe.