BTC’s CREATE Project Page 2
NWCAA GHG MITIGATION PROGRAM
Bellingham Technical College 3028 Lindbergh Avenue
Bellingham, WA 98225
Robert Costello
360-752-8317
[email protected]
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 3 PRODUCT OR SERVICE TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
Creating Renewable Energy and Advanced Technology Education (CREATE):
Training Technicians for Biomass, Wind and Solar Technologies
BTC proposes the CREATE project, which will develop workforce education to support industries in the areas of wind, photovoltaic (solar) and biomass (anaerobic digester [AD] and pyrolysis) energy technologies. The project will include curriculum revision and development in multiple technical programs as well as the construction of a renewable energy educational
infrastructure comprised of an advanced renewable energy lab and a functional renewable energy generation/distribution network (grid). To ensure high quality, the project will use expert input from BTC Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs), Western Washington University (WWU), Washington State University (WSU), the Pacific Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy and community and industry stakeholders.
A centerpiece of the project will be the design and implementation of BTC’s Advanced
Renewable Energy Lab, which will incorporate renewable energy training systems and working lab-scale systems to supplement classroom instruction. To provide opportunities for authentic learning experiences, functioning photovoltaic arrays, wind energy and biomass systems will be constructed and connected to form a small-scale operational power distribution grid. The curriculum development, Faculty Inquiry Group (FIG) professional development model, and the development manuals for the lab and distribution grid will serve as templates for infusion of renewable energy content and infrastructure into other existing technical programs at both the secondary and post-secondary levels.
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 4 PROJECT NARRATIVE
In partnership with employers, industry groups, economic development organizations, and other higher education institutions, Bellingham Technical College (BTC) will develop and provide workforce education programs that will contribute to the sustainable energy future in the Northwest region and that will result in long-term reductions in GHG emissions.
Project Rationale/GHG Mitigation Impact
One-time or demonstration projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may point us towards the way to reduce GHG, but meaningful, long-term reduction of GHG will require an educated workforce of skilled technicians trained in renewable energy technologies. As Washington State University researcher Alan Hardcastle (2009) notes, “[E]xisting technical education and training programs should be targeted for expansion, but in specific ways that can directly respond to the skill requirements of renewable energy jobs.” Bellingham Technical College has a proven record and demonstrated success in professional technical education that produces a highly- skilled workforce.
Two important questions arise with implications for the project’s justification: (1) is adapting these established programs truly needed, or can the required skill-set be easily met with existing personnel not specifically trained for these particular roles?, and (2) what are some alternative job placements for graduates if the anticipated renewable energy growth rate does not occur?
1. Response to the first query of concern involves preliminary analysis of required skill-sets and traits of existing renewable energy technicians. A qualified renewable energy
technician requires excellent organizational and management skills for administrating a complex maintenance schedule across numerous projects; superior interpersonal
communication skills so effective communication can be maintained between producers, owners, fabricators, personnel, and equipment/supply providers; technical training in the renewable energy area, including for biomass, wind and photovoltaic; technical
proficiency in a variety of areas such as engine, electrical generator, heat recovery, and pump operation, repair and maintenance; awareness of environmental conditions; and a working understanding of the renewable energy area of focus. The above includes a set of diverse and highly-specialized skills that a generalist applicant will most likely not
possess, hence the desire and need for specialized training.
2. BTC recognizes that successful professional technical education programs include access to employment opportunities for program graduates. To better position graduates, BTC will build upon existing strengths in the primary technical program areas, allowing students to attain their degree in one of these areas while adding key renewable energy skill sets through dedicated curriculum. This approach ensures that students will be well- prepared for an emerging career in renewable energy but also strongly skilled and
prepared for a wide spectrum of jobs in other fields.
BTC will update its existing programs by building upon their sound foundational curricula, excellent reputations, and good job placement to address employer needs for technicians trained in emerging renewable energy industries. State employment projections indicate that a sharp increase will occur in the demand for workers with these emerging occupational skills and knowledge in the next five to seven years in Whatcom County alone.
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 5 Project Goals
Funding will support three primary goals of the CREATE project, as outlined below.
Goal 1: Integrate photovoltaic, wind, and biomass technologies into current technical program curriculum
Objective #1.1 Implement a professional development framework using Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs).
Objective #1.2 Use faculty, community and industry consultation to develop and implement a blend of face-to-face, hybrid and online biomass, photovoltaic and wind energy technology curriculum.
Goal 2: Provide authentic, hands-on renewable energy training experiences for students in the College’s Advanced Renewable Energy Lab, with fully functional wind energy, biomass and photovoltaic training systems.
Objective #2.1 Evaluate, identify, purchase and install photovoltaic, biomass and wind energy training system equipment.
Objective #2.2 Implement renewable energy training systems and integrate into target program curricula and activities.
Goal 3: Disseminate professional development and curriculum models that can be replicated and adopted on a state and national level.
Objective #3.1 Develop and refine professional development opportunities for secondary and post-secondary faculty and staff, including workshops and seminars.
Objective #3.2 Disseminate best practices, curriculum, manuals and schematics from project internally and in local, state and national communities.
Strategic Partnerships/
BTC will work with key partners, such as the Northwest Higher Education Sustainability Consortium, Northwest Indian College, Western Washington and Washington State University, labor organizations such as Northwest Washington Electrical Industry Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, workforce and industry alliance organizations such as Northwest
Washington’s Innovation Resource Center, Sustainable Connections, and Northwest Workforce Council, and private industry entities and major employers such as Puget Sound Energy, Cascade Natural Gas, Alcoa-Intalco and Tenaska, to develop the CREATE project.
Partners will leverage their extensive expertise and efforts in a comprehensive effort to assist in developing this project. Participants will offer sites for piloting distance learning strategies;
contribute technical expertise on curricular design; serve as expert speakers in video or classroom short course formats; open up their industrial sites to on-site student learning activities; assist in program and graduate evaluations; and provide potential internships.
BTC has an ongoing history of collaboration with regional economic development organizations and both K-12 and post-secondary education partners. With the Northwest Workforce Council, for example, BTC has formed collaborative rapid response teams, added capacity to health, manufacturing and construction training programs on campus, and instituted programs to create
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 6 incumbent career pathways. BTC and Bellingham’s Northwest Indian College (NWIC) created targeted training for pipe welding students and are currently developing systems to assist NWIC students who wish to transition to BTC technical programs. BTC worked with WWU, the Port of Bellingham and other partners to help develop the Technology Development Center as part of Bellingham’s Innovation Partnership Zone; WSU’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources (CSANR) is working with BTC on current renewable energy grant projects and is committed to its partnership with BTC through leverage of on-going existing, funded projects and to developing collaborative, regionally-based NSF Center proposals that integrate numerous educational goals at both BTC and WSU.
As part of their cooperation and consulting services to the project, industry partners will provide not only technical expertise but access to worksites and commercial renewable energy equipment for on-site classroom teaching and internship development. An example of one such partnership that leads to GHG reduction is the Anaerobic Digester (AD) Technician certificate program, currently being developed by BTC in partnership with Washington State University and local employer, Andgar Corporation. The climate-changing impacts of AD technology hinge on the fact that long-term manure storage and application to fields, often occurring under anaerobic conditions, leads to the natural, open-air production of methane gas, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the warming value of carbon dioxide. By enclosing, controlling and accelerating this natural anaerobic conversion process, not only can the methane not be released, but it can be converted to renewable energy, providing two mechanisms for carbon sequestration and global warming reduction—methane capture/conversion and fossil-fuel energy offset. By providing an AD Technician program, BTC can provide the skilled workforce necessary to support the expected development of new digester installations in the region, which will result in significant decrease of GHG emissions.
Leverage of Funds
BTC operating funds, combined with state, private and federal grants from organizations such as the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC), Alcoa
Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), are already being used to support this project.
Primary use of funds will be to support curriculum development, faculty professional
development, and purchase of essential components of the Advanced Renewable Energy Lab:
photovoltaic energy and wind energy training systems, such as the U.S. Didactic EPH2 Advanced Solar PV Trainer or the Solar/Wind Energy Training System from Lab-Volt. This equipment will give students hands-on experience in design and operations of photovoltaic and wind power, and allow them to conduct computer-based data measurement and analysis.
Dissemination Plan
With effective renewable energy training models in great demand and need for training for wind, photovoltaic, and biomass technicians anticipated to rapidly increase, the need to share best practices that result from this project will be critical. Because of the innovative nature of the project and current State and national focus on renewable energy technology, this project will be a high-profile one. Targeted audiences for dissemination efforts are two-year colleges located in rural agricultural and urban communities in the Pacific Northwest as well as nationally;
agricultural sector industries, including dairy, food processing and waste facilities; energy and
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 7 manufacturing sector industries, workforce organizations, including WIBs, EDCs, and farm industry associations, and labor unions.
This project will utilize an approach to dissemination that combines multimedia and personal touch strategies. These efforts will make this project and its outcomes well known throughout the region, State, nation and beyond. BTC will share curriculum content with the Association for Career and Technical Education and will post materials on the national American Association of Community College Resources website. This project will catalyze online discussions among instructors nationally around renewable energy education. BTC has already reserved a slot to present on conference calls hosted through AACC. It is anticipated that through interactions sparked by the websites and conference calls, the project team will be able to forge new alliances and partnerships aimed at furthering and improving the curriculum work.
More traditional avenues of dissemination, including conferences, presentations, and community partnering, will be used. The partners will work with other collaborators for release, discussion, and use of project products, results and impacts. In a later phase of the project, an Educator’s Institute and webinars will be provided to assist colleges and others that want to craft similar training programs. The Pacific Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy at Centralia College has a State-mandated mission of disseminating curricula state-wide and regionally and will assist in these activities.
WSU CSANR engages in regular AD and renewable energy outreach activities, some of which are specific to this project as well as BTC’s USDA project, and are particularly effective avenues for disseminating the products, results and impacts. These include annual management of
regional-based AD industry workshops that are coordinated with the EPA national office;
sponsorship of the Harvesting Clean Energy conference; involvement with renewable energy working groups, taskforces and conference.
Outcomes
As a result of this project, BTC will be positioned to provide training and assistance that will support the development of the future workforce skilled in renewable energy technology. It is anticipated that this grant project will serve approximately 300 BTC students over the next three years alone, and that these numbers will continue to compound as the renewable energy
education infrastructure is established, and function as a powerful recruitment and dissemination tool. CREATE will serve as a foundation to expand BTC’s renewable energy workforce training and outreach and enhance renewable energy curriculum development for technical programs.
Evaluation Plan
This project will increase the number of students encouraged to pursue and complete a two year postsecondary degree or certificate in the area of renewable energy. BTC will track the number of students enrolled in the new courses and the number graduating with certificates and degrees.
Due to the opportunity to deliver the content with distance technology, actual student numbers are anticipated to be significant. The impact on recruiting, enrollment, grades, graduation rates, home location of students, job placement, workshop and conference participants, where the new curriculum content was distributed and how it was integrated into existing curricula, will be tracked and analyzed. The team will use results to expand/revise curriculum and lab content.
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 8 In addition to instructor/student surveys about the curriculum and its delivery, students will participate in hands-on final exams conducted at sites with relevant renewable energy
installations, with evaluation from field technicians and faculty members. The internship sites will participate in a focus group to evaluate curricula and student skills as well as to provide information important to refining the curriculum.
Assessment will determine if the new curriculum was successfully implemented and its impact;
what changes were accomplished; what challenges were encountered; and how these challenges were addressed. Questions will revolve around what changes, if any, were made in the project design or process, why they were done; and discussion of plans for the future. Internships will be used as a main component of how BTC evaluates module design and effectiveness. Industry internships are expected for program graduates. Intern supervisors will evaluate the students’ on- the-job performance, noting where students excelled and where they fell short. Changes will be addressed and fine-tuned, based on the evaluative feedback from community and industry.
Linkages to Federal Grants and Programs
As a previous federal grant recipient, Bellingham Technical College has developed and refined its fiscal systems and data collection analysis and management for grant management,
accountability, and reporting. Washington State Community and Technical colleges have statewide data systems that assist in data collection and management, and the College researcher works with employment security and workforce development staff at the State and federal levels to continuously assess defined outcomes for projects such as this. BTC has proven its capacity to make this project successful in the areas of staffing, fiscal, administrative, and performance management. As an example, BTC has met and exceeded outcomes for its Department of Labor Pipeline to Advanced Manufacturing Careers grant. One outcome (increased program capacity) was originally estimated to increase by 25%; during the course of the project, program capacity increased from 40% to over 100% in a variety of programs, and student enrollment doubled. The College will continue to sustain these levels of access and enrollment. The DOL Pipeline
personnel collect performance and fiscal information from the three partner colleges and BTC, and create and submit quarterly performance and financial reports via the DOL online reporting system.
The College has had strong success with program development and revision and capacity expansion grants, including those funded by Washington State and federal projects, including those from the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S.
Department of Education. As this project begins, BTC will be closing a previous federal grant project and will have experienced staff that can be re-directed to this project.
RELEVANT HISTORY
BTC’s mission is to deliver superior professional technical education for today’s needs and tomorrow’s opportunities. For over fifty years, the College’s primary focus has been responding to workforce needs by developing a highly skilled educated workforce in collaboration with local, regional and national business, education and economic development partners. The targeted technical degree programs are successful and each have experienced faculty members with excellent technical labs and classroom space. These facilities and personnel will be used in implementing the revised curriculum and training the students. BTC will work with community and industry partners to fabricate and purchase several bench-scale training systems for the
BTC’s CREATE Project Page 9 Advanced Renewable Energy Lab so that students can learn from and be trained with them in regard to renewable energy processes.
BTC has a strong five-year strategic planning process—Charting the BTC Future—that drives institutional operations, influences our priority initiatives, and directs decision-making and goal achievement. The plan is a dynamic document that is reviewed and updated annually.
This project supports three of BTC’s strategic goals: Innovation and Excellence, Access, and Partnerships. The goal of Innovation and Excellence supports and promotes excellence and innovation with several relevant priority initiatives: 1) expand instructional delivery to reflect innovation and emerging instruction, 2) support expanding industry by appropriately focusing on program development and revision, and 3) redevelop existing professional technical programs to incorporate green technologies, including renewable energy and environmental protection. The Access goal is to increase students’ access to educational pathways. In 2009 BTC added a priority initiative to this goal: to provide students with pathways into occupations that
incorporate green/renewable technologies. The Partnership goal is to expand partnerships that enhance and strengthen the College’s ability to achieve its mission. Partnering with WWU, WSU and other workforce, community and industry partners with knowledge in this field will provide BTC the ability to attain this emerging expertise and integrate this content into already successful, related technical programs. These partners, as well as a number of local, regional and State entities supporting this project, will enable BTC to provide curriculum and a skilled
educated workforce that will be critical in the work to reduce GHG.
ESTIMATE OF COSTS
Current budget projections for the equipment needed for the Advanced Renewable Energy Lab are approximately $258,000, and include wind, solar, fuel cell and anaerobic digester trainers and equipment. Project development costs are approximately $40,000 and include stipends for curriculum development, participation in Faculty Inquiry Groups, and expert consultants.
Requirements for the renewable energy distribution network (grid) are still being developed, but preliminary estimates reflect costs in the range of $375,000 to $550,000, and include wind turbines, solar arrays and other energy installations.
