PIN participants install solar panels Saturday at Baldwin County Water Treatment Plant

The final project for a free certificate course blending business and solar physics at Georgia College & State University will provide $20,000 worth of solar panels to Baldwin County’s Water Treatment Facility. 

Ten residents who took classes last spring were selected to install 38 solar panels on an EcoFoot2+ Saturday, July 27, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Lamar F. Hamm Water Treatment Plant at 510 East Montgomery Street in Milledgeville. 

The project is the completion of a new grant program giving free instruction and training to residents in green technology, solar power and next-generation business tactics. 

“These students are going to be able to get certified via the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners, NABCEP, making them very competitive for any company looking for installers," said Dr. Nicholas Creel, a business and ethics law professor who taught the business side of the PIN course. Dr. Hasitha Mahabaduge, associate professor of physics taught the solar side.

Georgia College’s 40-hour course, “An Introduction to Solar Technology and Entrepreneurship,” launched in January through the university’s Department of Continuing and Professional Education. It was paid for by a $100,000 grant from Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, PIN, awarded to the university’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship last fall.

Special emphasis was placed on the design and installation of photovoltaic electrical systems for residential and commercial use. Participants were taught entrepreneurship and how to start their own businesses in the solar and green-energy market sector.

In total, about 40 residents took advantage of the program. Some were retired professors looking to adapt their homes to solar power. Others had high school degrees and wanted to get better jobs. 

“Most were people looking for a better paying job,” Creel said, “and this educational program offered them a clear path to do so.”

Milledgeville City Manager Hank Griffeth chose the water district as the solar project site to make its operation more sustainable. 

On Saturday, resident participants will bring solar panels to the roof of a water treatment plant building, positioning them in layered rows. They’ll help connect and wire together panels, although final steps will be completed by a certified electrician. 

They'll be aided by two Georgia College alumni working in Atlanta’s solar industry: Ryan Agnew founder of South East Solar, and Rylan Gordon, director of business development for East Coast at Sinovoltaics. Ryan contributed to the engineering design of this project, helped procure materials and will ensure safety codes are met.