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Bill, I'm not your "UL guy", and I haven't taken any UL trainings or exams. But when I review the UL web page about this subject (http://lms.ulknowledgeservices.com/catalog/display.resource.aspx?resourceid=285443), the requirement is for a "qualified electrician", not a licensed electrician. This wording on UL's part is likely for the same reason that NABCEP doesn't require a license. The main reason is that NABCEP is a national certification, while licensure requirements are at most state-specific and often differ by county or municipality, and the requirements have to be written to work in any jurisdiction. Some states simply don't require licensure, so if either NABCEP or UL required it, some qualified electricians would be prevented from applying. To me, a valid second reason is that NABCEP (and probably UL as well) have never been intended to compete with or have any formal relationship to licensure, and so there shouldn't be any cross-requirements. IMHO that is as it should be. The same holds true for NABCEP having no official support for certification being required by any jurisdiction, although a number of states tie certification to some of their own standards by their own initiative. The UL certification appears to be considerably less rigorous that the NABCEP PV Installer certification. NABCEP requires formal training and evidence of having led a specific number of jobs in order to qualify to sit for the exam; UL requires neither. Both require the same continuing education and recertification every three years, but NABCEP also requires evidence of completed installations, with customer contact information for verification. It appears that the only standard that is higher for the UL certification is OSHA-30, while NABCEP only requires OSHA-10. The only person who would "officially" respond to Wrenches posts about NABCEP would be Ezra Auerbach, the Executive Director. That's part of his job, to be the public face for the organization. I have forwarded a few of these posts to him, and have gotten back a robo-response that he and his wife are away on vacation and will respond to emails upon return, I think around the end of June. That's most likely why you haven't seen any "official" NABCEP commentary on the subject.The rest of the people who might respond are volunteers, not staff. You got a thoughtful post yesterday from Andrew Truitt, who is on the Board of Directors as a volunteer, and I respond as time allows (I'm a volunteer on the PV technical committee, and I volunteered to help create the Company Accreditation program). I would hope that Bob-O would respond on NABCEP issues, as he too is on the BoD and his posts can be quite entertaining, but I haven't seen a post from him on anything here for many months, so I suspect he's either not monitoring the Wrenches list or has retired... I would not call NABCEP a "vendor", Bill, as that suggests a for-profit business that must be held to strict tech-only standards to respond on this list. NABCEP is a small nonprofit organization set up by volunteers for the benefit of our industry. Allan
Allan Sindelar
[email protected] NABCEP Certified Photovoltaic Installer NABCEP Certified Technical Sales Professional New Mexico EE98J Journeyman Electrician Founder and Chief Technology Officer Positive Energy, Inc. 3209 Richards Lane (note new address) Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507 505 424-1112 www.positiveenergysolar.com
On 6/2/2012 6:39 AM, Bill Loesch wrote:
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