Of course solar power is going to take over the world. But in the mean time, it is a very approachable industry.

I always enjoy talking to engineers. My father was a chemical engineer - nuclear power, but he was really a great guy. My first job as a journalist exposed me to electrical engineers working on the cutting edge of information technology: the IBM mainframe. I spent many years talking to mechanical engineers in a variety of industries, from industrial processes to aerospace and defense. The best part of interviewing engineers is the enthusiasm they display - even if a corporate communication person intervenes to walk some of that enthusiasm back.

At solar industry trade shows, you can’t throw a thumb drive without hitting an engineer. This is because the solar sector is so new that many of the company executives - including the top ones - have engineering degrees of one sort or another. Often, the primary company representative is a founder who had a good idea and made it work as a business.

Underneath the hood of almost any product in the solar sector are years of design, finite-element analysis, computational fluid dynamics analysis, certification testing and fieldwork. Rinse and repeat. Much of this work is required in order for a product to be deemed safe and effective by authorities having jurisdiction. Always, the work is intended to make the product cheaper, better and easier to install.

Photovoltaic solar power is a low-margin business by any standard, which places a tremendous burden on engineers to meet these demands. The high attrition rate of solar businesses testifies to the absolute requirement for companies to look to their pricing. At the same time, the experience that these efforts produce is highly valuable and applicable to the sorts of everyday problems developers and installers face when trying to put their projects on a paying basis.

Such a highly competitive environment has produced a wealth of engineering knowledge that the downstream portions of the solar supply chain can readily tap into. There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter approach to solar project development. Every rooftop and every site will have its own nuances that will require an engineer’s attention at some point.

In the solar sector, engineering support is often right there in front of you, signing the supply agreement or looking over the site. Tap a shoulder. Ask a question. More than likely, you will soon be talking to an engineer who has seen your problem before. Moreover, you will probably find someone who is more than happy to help. Feedback from actual situations in the field is the lifeblood of engineers, and solving your problems will likely result in better, cheaper, easier-to-install products in the future.

In this sense, all of the engineers you work with are local. Support them, and they will support you.