For Olivia Amyette, solar power should be for everyone – plain and simple. But, for the young business owner, this doesn’t just mean access to owning and using solar panels. It also means making the solar workforce accessible to anyone interested, regardless of where they live, what they look like, or how much money they make.  

Olivia started Infinite Energy Advisors, her “one-stop solar shop” that provides design, installation, and related services to solar customers, in 2020 in the small mountain town of Cleveland, Georgia. In a state with largely untapped potential for rooftop solar, Olivia hopes Infinite Energy Advisors is the first of many centers to help facilitate solar installation in Georgia – and to help build up a qualified workforce to power the movement.

As of last year, her facility now hosts the first on-site comprehensive solar training center in Georgia, called the Solar Knowledge Institute (SKI). With SKI, Olivia aims to expand solar workforce options for the next generation, focusing on bringing more women and minority communities onto the solar scene and providing paid on-the-job training opportunities.

After our first Q&A blog with Olivia about her inspirations to launch Infinite Energy Advisors, we caught up with her again for an update on how her goals are progressing. Read on to learn more about Olivia’s entirely self-funded business, her focus on the need for more equity and inclusion in the solar workforce, and some exciting milestones for the Solar Knowledge Institute as it welcomes its first public cohort.

Where did the idea for your solar training program, the Solar Knowledge Institute, come from? 

When I first started my solar company Infinite Energy Advisors, we were helping out other solar companies on jobs, but the way many of them were being run felt like something I wouldn’t want to put my name on. Solar has neighboring career paths like electrical, construction, and roofing that all come together into one profession – and I saw that nobody really knew how to do all of it. People were not equipped, and their customers were disgruntled. I thought, “We’ve got to make sure that people in our workforce are proud of their work.” 

There was not a good spot for solar workers to figure out how to do all these things, and there was nothing in-person, with mentorship and soft skill development. 

That’s why I wanted to start the Solar Knowledge Institute (SKI), because my training that I created for Infinite Energy Advisors was working. When Infinite Energy Advisors was started five years ago, I did a lot of surveying of other companies, trying to find out, “Who taught you, and how do you know what you know?” 99% of the time, people were taught by someone who said he knew how to do solar, and that was really it. There’s more to it than that. 

So, I took what I learned about the industry, threw some stuff on the wall and saw what stuck, then made it more official. I thought, let me package this curriculum up and ensure that all companies have access to training like this, whether it be in the form of them sending their workers to us to train, or hiring from our pool of graduates from the SKI. I wanted to make a larger impact in the industry, one that extends outside of our reach. 

Nowadays, SKI has great partnerships and professors on staff – people from the manufacturing level who represent some of the most popular manufacturers in the industry, people who teach certain solar items, people who can serve as lead engineers on our larger projects. 

It’s a continuing education program, a living program, meaning that what we teach today might not be the same as what we teach next year. Some of it is fundamentally going to be the same all the time, but as new products come into the industry, we lean a lot on our manufacturing partnerships to ensure that we get the right people in front of our students so they can keep up with all of the industry trends. 

Students of the Solar Knowledge Institute learn how to install rooftop solar panels.

What inspired you to establish your own solar company? 

I started Infinite Energy Advisors to get into the solar industry, but also to support myself and to take care of my Grandpa. ​​I was raised hearing stories of how when he came to the States, like many other immigrants he had nothing but a determination to make anything work. He would study English by himself by candlelight because he couldn’t afford his electricity. 

Having such a fairly recent connection to something like that – a living, breathing human to tell these stories, the emotions on his face – I had to make sure that this renewable energy source that can save you money and help keep your power on gets into folks’ hands who really need it. 

Why did you start your solar business and training program in a small town like Cleveland, Georgia? 

Smaller communities are often overlooked and can be the ones that need workforce training the most, so the local workforce was a huge thing for me. There was a newspaper article going around when I first got into the industry that said nearly all solar work being done in Georgia was done by companies or laborers from out of state. I felt like that was a big problem – I felt like, not under my watch.

Up in North Georgia where we’re at the beginning of the mountains, a lot of folks’ power goes out often. There’s not a lot of resilience. Traditionally, many folks’ only option was to have a generator for when the power went out, which uses dirty energy and can be expensive – paying so much to fill the propane tank over and over, and having to find a way to get more when you run out. When you’re in the mountains, you’re often the last to get your power turned back on, even though these communities still have people who need access to the internet, people in school, people with medical needs that need electricity. 

We saw that people up here had a need for solar batteries – a one-time investment, good for as long as the battery lasts them. Solar batteries make sense here holistically. I felt like we could not only make a difference here in terms of building up a solar workforce, but also be able to keep the workforce busy because of the demand for reliable power. 

Our training actually also covers the entire state, and that means we physically get to travel to other areas and train. We don’t require people to come to us, since Cleveland is so rural.

Olivia poses with SKI staff and one of the business’ manufacturing partners.

Solar Knowledge Institute has been around for nearly a year – where does it stand now? 

Of our pilot program of 14 or 15 students this past year, 100% of them have obtained full-time employment in clean energy careers. I hope I can always say that, just with bigger numbers. This year, we hope to welcome between 10 and 40 students to our first public cohort, plus the DIY-ers who come through for a class or two. 

We have successfully been able to create Georgia’s first and only currently registered apprenticeship program that’s officially accredited and recognized by the Georgia Department of Labor (DOL) with a focus on solar. This means we are currently the only folks here who can offer other companies apprentice labor for solar projects, which is amazing. 

Companies sometimes need apprentice labor to get certain financial incentives or to even take on a project – maybe their client requires a certain amount of apprentice labor. SKI can now help fulfill that, which not only opens up more locally-based jobs in clean energy, but also more eligible solar projects so more people can get solar. We’re making the workforce stronger.

SKI students are required to have real, on-the-job learning experience. With our DOL partnership, we can pay them for the training hours they spend contributing to local solar projects. By the time they graduate SKI, they have certifications, a portfolio of projects, and a decorated resume. Plus, we teach them soft skills, such as interviewing skills, so they know how to market themselves. 

By having paid training opportunities, we’re also able to help underserved communities and those often overlooked by these programs – many of whom without getting paid can’t commit to a program like this. This is one reason this DOL partnership was so important to me. Already, about 75% of SKI students have been minorities, just through organic interest. And that’s what I wanted to see. Many people just kind of went for it. 

Where do SKI’s graduates go?

When I first started SKI, I knew that if I’m going to have these students go through this program, I ought to be able to offer them a job at Infinite Energy Advisors! So, SKI started in a way where we could offer employment to all folks when they graduate – however, our goal is to not hoard everybody. We want to be able to strengthen the entire workforce. 

We have many industry partnerships who are very interested in hiring our apprentices and giving them full-time positions, part-time positions – being very intentional about what exactly folks are looking for upon graduation. We have a very, very high probability that everybody will be able to have a job when they complete the program as long as they want it.

Olivia and students of the Solar Knowledge Institute pose after installing rooftop solar panels.

What keeps you motivated, especially in a time where clean energy can feel unprioritized and overlooked?

Solar is for everybody. We get a lot of folks asking us about the partisan nature of solar, but solar is not just for one specific political party. It makes sense for whoever it makes sense for regardless of political views, and we bring that into our space. One of the greatest parts about my business is that we get to take a break from all the noise that we hear politically every single day and just enjoy the work that we’re doing. Plain and simple, we get to benefit people. 

We want people from both ends of the aisle supporting solar. I think that’s something that a lot of people are craving at this time – just a way to be united. 

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Read about what inspired Olivia to launch Infinite Energy Advisors  

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The post Olivia Amyette is Bringing Solar Power—and Paid Job Training—to Georgians Who Need It appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Olivia Amyette is Bringing Solar Power—and Paid Job Training—to Georgians Who Need It