The Center for Strategic Policy Innovation (CSPI) has partnered with Arizona State University’s renowned Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions (LEAPS) to provide an online training course to help local governments and NGOs build expertise to develop local community-based solar and microgrid projects. Through this course, which includes support and participation from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), you will learn how to identify a potential goldmine of economically viable, “behind-the-meter” low-hanging fruit solar/microgrid opportunities in your community, and to leverage the free REopt and SAM tools to conduct site modeling and feasibility analyses for solar, battery storage and microgrid projects. 

The online self-paced iteration of this course, which premiers in Spring 2024, is based on the highly successful real-time training that took place May 2-18 of this year, where CSPI graduated sixteen (16) clean energy/resiliency champions from across the U.S. – including one or more representatives of local government, critical infrastructure, native tribal nations, work-force training institutions, community-based organization (CBOs) and regional/national NGOs (including two trainees from Europe, doing projects in Africa). The personal instruction for this first-of-its-kind nationwide training program on REopt and SAM clean energy/resiliency modeling tools included a comprehensive in-depth curriculum and personalized expert instruction for a hands-on (real-time) online training and certification through Arizona State University’s LEAPS Team, including instruction from NREL experts.  

This course is designed primarily for cities, counties, school districts, NGOs, indigenous tribes, and community-based organizations that are looking to build in-house expertise to advance local solar and microgrid projects. The cost to participate is $875 for the course and $90 for 3 continuing education certification units (CSPI and its partners will be seeking grant monies for tuition assistance purposes).