Renewable Energy Solutions Training Course

Duration 10 days 20 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Energy Managers, Sustainability Managers and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-ETR-011

Before you join: Participants should understand basic electricity concepts, energy bills, operational costs and simple financial calculations such as payback period.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Renewable energy programmes must do more than identify promising technologies. Energy, facilities, finance and sustainability teams need to match generation options with demand profiles, grid constraints, land availability, permitting requirements, operating risks and investment criteria. Poorly framed projects can produce optimistic yield assumptions, unbankable business cases, connection delays, procurement disputes or assets that do not meet decarbonisation targets.

This course equips participants to assess, specify and justify renewable energy solutions for commercial, industrial, public-sector and infrastructure settings. Participants examine solar PV, wind, bioenergy, hydropower, geothermal, energy storage and hybrid systems; assess resource and site data; model energy yield and Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE); compare ownership and contracting structures; and prepare procurement, risk and implementation plans. The course also addresses grid integration, battery storage, corporate power purchase agreements, environmental safeguards, lifecycle impacts and operating performance.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings, worked energy-project cases, group analysis, technical and financial simulations, and structured application planning. Participants progressively build a renewable energy project concept using their own organisation, a supplied case, or a sector-relevant scenario such as a manufacturing plant, municipal facility, telecom network or remote health site. They leave with a structured renewable energy solution business case, including demand analysis, technology selection, preliminary economics, risk register, procurement route and implementation roadmap.

The course is suited to professionals who contribute to energy planning, capital projects, facilities management, sustainability programmes, procurement, investment appraisal or infrastructure delivery. It is particularly relevant where organisations are reducing grid dependence, managing volatile energy costs, meeting emissions commitments, improving service reliability or planning low-carbon expansion.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess energy demand, emissions baselines and renewable resource data for project screening
  • Select suitable renewable generation, storage and hybrid-system configurations using defined criteria
  • Calculate preliminary energy yield, LCOE, payback period and emissions reductions
  • Develop a site-screening assessment covering land, grid, permitting and environmental constraints
  • Compare ownership, financing and contracting models for renewable energy procurement
  • Prepare technical specifications and evaluation criteria for renewable energy tenders
  • Construct a project risk register with mitigation actions and performance controls
  • Present a renewable energy solution business case with implementation roadmap

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Build confidence assessing renewable energy proposals from technical and commercial perspectives
  • Produce credible energy-project business cases for senior management approval
  • Identify weak yield assumptions, hidden costs and delivery risks before commitment
  • Contribute effectively to discussions with developers, utilities, engineers and lenders
  • Apply recognised project-screening methods to current energy and decarbonisation priorities

For your organisation

  • Improved selection of renewable projects aligned with load, budget and emissions objectives
  • Fewer avoidable errors in site selection, resource assumptions and grid connection planning
  • Better tender documentation and supplier evaluation for renewable energy procurements
  • More defensible capital-allocation decisions using transparent technical and financial assumptions
  • Stronger governance of energy-project risks, safeguards, performance and lifecycle costs

Course modules

20 modules over 10 days

Participants can define an energy opportunity using demand, emissions, cost and reliability evidence.

  • Energy transition drivers: electrification, decarbonisation targets, fuel-price exposure, and resilience
  • National energy balances interpreted using primary, final, and useful energy
  • Demand profiles separated into baseload, variable, seasonal, and critical loads
  • Scope 1 and 2 emissions linked to energy procurement decisions
  • Energy policy instruments: auctions, tax credits, mandates, and carbon pricing
  • Materiality matrix distinguishes cost, emissions, reliability, and stakeholder priorities

Participants can compare renewable technologies against a defined project requirement.

  • Solar photovoltaic systems compared by scale, mounting, output, and constraints
  • Wind turbine projects assessed through wind regime, terrain, setbacks, and access
  • Bioenergy pathways distinguished by feedstock, conversion technology, and supply security
  • Hydropower and geothermal options screened against resource and permitting conditions
  • Technology selection matrix scores cost, yield, maturity, impacts, and reliability
  • Hybrid generation combinations matched to operational demand and grid availability

Participants can prepare an energy baseline suitable for renewable project screening.

  • Twelve-month utility bills converted into consumption, demand, tariff, and cost data
  • Interval meter data analysed for daily, weekly, and seasonal load patterns
  • Energy-use intensity calculated per floor area, production unit, or service output
  • Load inventory identifies critical equipment, operating hours, and backup requirements
  • Baseline adjustments account for weather, occupancy, production, and planned expansion
  • Data-quality checks identify missing intervals, estimated readings, and unusual consumption

Participants can estimate preliminary solar PV output from resource and site information.

  • Global horizontal irradiance converted into plane-of-array solar resource estimates
  • PVGIS and meteorological datasets compared for resource-data uncertainty
  • Shading analysis identifies obstruction losses from buildings, trees, and terrain
  • Performance ratio separates irradiation, temperature, soiling, inverter, and cable losses
  • Module orientation and tilt tested against annual yield and load timing
  • Preliminary PV yield expressed in kilowatt-hours per kilowatt-peak annually

Participants can judge whether a wind opportunity merits further technical investigation.

  • Wind-speed distributions represented using Weibull parameters and measurement records
  • Hub-height extrapolation applies wind-shear assumptions to measured site data
  • Turbine power curves translate wind speeds into expected annual generation
  • Wake losses estimated from turbine spacing, prevailing winds, and terrain
  • Capacity factor tested against resource quality, curtailment, and availability assumptions
  • Setback, aviation, noise, and visual constraints recorded during initial screening

Participants can screen dispatchable renewable technologies using resource and operational criteria.

  • Feedstock assessment covers quantity, seasonality, moisture, competing uses, and transport
  • Anaerobic digestion matched to organic waste composition and digestate management
  • Biomass combustion evaluated through fuel quality, emissions controls, and storage
  • Small hydropower screening considers head, flow duration, abstraction, and ecology
  • Geothermal resource concepts distinguish shallow heat, direct use, and power generation
  • Dispatchable renewable output valued against thermal fuel displacement and reliability needs

Participants can identify storage roles and size preliminary hybrid-system configurations.

  • Battery storage applications separated into shifting, backup, peak shaving, and balancing
  • Lithium-ion battery specifications compared using capacity, power, cycles, and degradation
  • State-of-charge profiles tested against generation variability and critical-load requirements
  • Round-trip efficiency and depth-of-discharge incorporated into usable storage calculations
  • Hybrid solar, battery, diesel configurations modelled for remote and weak-grid sites
  • Battery safety requirements address thermal management, fire protection, and access control

Participants can identify grid connection requirements and likely integration constraints.

  • Interconnection studies examine voltage limits, fault levels, protection, and hosting capacity
  • Net metering, net billing, and feed-in tariffs compared for project revenues
  • Inverter functions support voltage ride-through, reactive power, and frequency response
  • Curtailment risk assessed from grid congestion, dispatch rules, and generation timing
  • Power-quality issues include harmonics, flicker, voltage imbalance, and transients
  • Single-line diagrams communicate generation, metering, protection, and connection interfaces

Participants can conduct a preliminary site-screening assessment for renewable development.

  • Site-screening checklist records land tenure, access, slope, drainage, and security
  • GIS mapping identifies exclusions, easements, protected areas, and nearby infrastructure
  • Grid-connection proximity assessed against route length, voltage level, and upgrade costs
  • Planning permits sequenced with environmental approvals, licences, and stakeholder consultation
  • Land agreements distinguish lease, easement, purchase, concession, and community benefit
  • Fatal-flaw analysis prioritises constraints requiring resolution before development expenditure

Participants can identify and manage major environmental and social issues in renewable projects.

  • Environmental and social impact assessment scopes receptors, pathways, impacts, and mitigation
  • IFC Performance Standards applied to land use, labour, biodiversity, and communities
  • Biodiversity screening addresses habitat loss, bird collision, bats, and protected species
  • Stakeholder engagement plan maps affected groups, concerns, communication, and grievance channels
  • Construction management controls dust, noise, traffic, waste, and erosion
  • Decommissioning provisions address asset removal, land restoration, recycling, and financial security

Participants can prepare a preliminary financial appraisal for a renewable energy project.

  • Capital expenditure separates equipment, civil works, development, connection, and contingency
  • Operating expenditure estimates maintenance, insurance, land rent, administration, and replacement
  • Levelized Cost of Energy calculates lifetime cost per generated kilowatt-hour
  • Discounted cash flow estimates net present value, internal rate, and payback
  • Sensitivity analysis tests irradiation, tariff, capital cost, inflation, and degradation
  • Avoided-cost calculations distinguish retail tariffs, demand charges, fuel, and carbon costs

Participants can compare financing structures and allocate key project risks.

  • Balance-sheet ownership compared with leasing, project finance, and energy-service models
  • Debt-service coverage ratio interpreted for lender assessment of repayment capacity
  • Equity returns tested using distribution waterfalls, exit assumptions, and tax treatment
  • Blended finance structures combine grants, concessional debt, guarantees, and commercial capital
  • Risk allocation matrix assigns development, construction, resource, market, and political risks
  • Investment committee papers present assumptions, approvals, conditions, and decision options

Participants can select a procurement route and assess core renewable energy contract terms.

  • On-site solar procurement compares purchase, lease, solar service, and PPA models
  • Physical and virtual power purchase agreements distinguished by delivery and settlement
  • Request-for-proposal documents define scope, technical requirements, pricing, and guarantees
  • Bid evaluation matrix weights technical compliance, commercial value, delivery, and safeguards
  • PPA terms address tenor, tariff escalation, volume, curtailment, and termination
  • Renewable energy certificates assessed for ownership, retirement, and claims integrity

Participants can define technical requirements and quality controls for renewable energy assets.

  • Employer's requirements specify output, design life, codes, interfaces, and acceptance tests
  • IEC 62446-1 requirements guide photovoltaic documentation, inspection, and commissioning
  • Factory acceptance tests verify equipment performance before shipment and installation
  • Site acceptance tests confirm output, protection settings, safety, and communications
  • Quality inspection plans assign hold points, witness points, records, and responsibilities
  • Defect-liability provisions define correction periods, response times, and retention amounts

Participants can plan major construction controls for renewable energy project delivery.

  • Work breakdown structures organise development, procurement, construction, commissioning, and handover
  • Critical path method identifies schedule dependencies, float, milestones, and delay exposure
  • Construction logistics plan addresses access roads, lifting, storage, traffic, and workforce
  • Permit-to-work systems control electrical isolation, excavation, lifting, and work-at-height
  • HSE plans identify hazards, controls, emergency response, training, and reporting
  • Contractor performance tracked through schedule, quality, safety, cost, and change indicators

Participants can establish operating controls and performance measures for renewable assets.

  • Operations and maintenance strategy distinguishes preventive, predictive, corrective, and condition-based work
  • SCADA data monitors generation, availability, alarms, inverter status, and weather conditions
  • Performance guarantees tested against contractual reference conditions and measurement methods
  • Availability calculations separate planned outages, forced outages, curtailment, and grid interruptions
  • Maintenance planning covers spares, service contracts, warranties, inspections, and response times
  • Asset management plans define ownership, records, budgets, inspections, and lifecycle decisions

Participants can measure renewable energy performance and report credible emissions outcomes.

  • Metering architecture distinguishes revenue meters, operational meters, submeters, and check meters
  • Measurement and verification plans define baselines, boundaries, variables, and reporting periods
  • IPMVP options selected for retrofit savings, generation, and facility-level changes
  • GHG Protocol Scope 2 methods compare location-based and market-based reporting
  • Emissions factors selected using grid data, fuel factors, and contractual instruments
  • Performance dashboards communicate generation, savings, emissions, availability, and exceptions

Participants can incorporate lifecycle impacts and end-of-life planning into project decisions.

  • ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 frame lifecycle assessment goals and boundaries
  • Embodied carbon compared across modules, inverters, batteries, structures, and transport
  • Supply-chain due diligence examines minerals, labour conditions, traceability, and supplier controls
  • Circular procurement requirements address repairability, warranties, reuse, recycling, and take-back
  • Battery end-of-life pathways compare second life, recycling, storage, and disposal
  • Lifecycle cost analysis includes replacement cycles, decommissioning, remediation, and residual value

Participants can govern renewable energy projects through structured risks, controls and approvals.

  • Risk register records cause, event, consequence, likelihood, owner, and response
  • Bow-tie analysis links preventive controls, recovery measures, and assurance activities
  • Stage-gate governance defines feasibility, development, investment, construction, and handover decisions
  • Change-control procedures assess scope, cost, schedule, quality, and approval impacts
  • Project dashboards report milestones, budget, risks, permits, procurement, and technical performance
  • Lessons-learned reviews capture decisions, variances, outcomes, and reusable improvements

Participants can build, review and present a complete renewable energy solution business case.

  • Project brief defines demand, objectives, site conditions, stakeholders, and decision criteria
  • Technology selection substantiated through resource, load, cost, grid, and safeguards evidence
  • Preliminary yield and financial model state assumptions, sensitivities, and decision thresholds
  • Procurement strategy sets contract route, evaluation criteria, governance, and timetable
  • Implementation roadmap sequences approvals, design, construction, commissioning, and performance monitoring
  • Executive presentation communicates recommendation, risks, funding need, benefits, and next decisions

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Renewable energy opportunity-screening template
  2. Energy demand and emissions baseline model
  3. Technology selection and site-screening matrix
  4. Preliminary LCOE and financial appraisal model
  5. Renewable project risk and procurement checklist
  6. Renewable energy solution business case

Who should attend

  • Energy Managers — assess and implement lower-carbon energy supply options
  • Sustainability Managers — translate emissions targets into viable energy projects
  • Facilities Managers — improve energy cost control and site reliability
  • Project Managers — deliver renewable energy assets from concept through commissioning
  • Procurement Professionals — structure competitive renewable energy tenders and contracts
  • Investment and Finance Analysts — test project economics, risks and funding structures

Skills and tools covered

Renewable project appraisalEnergy yield modellingLCOE analysisGrid integration planningRenewable procurementProject risk management

Tools and standards

Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), System Advisor Model (SAM), IEC 62446-1, ISO 14040 and ISO 14044

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish technical and commercial foundations, followed by worked cases from industrial facilities, public infrastructure, commercial property and remote-power applications. Participants analyse demand data, compare technology options, interpret yield assumptions, test financial inputs and review procurement decisions in small groups. Simulations address developer proposals, grid constraints, contract choices and project risks. Each participant applies the methods to a selected workplace opportunity or a supplied case, building material for the final business case.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic electricity concepts, energy bills, operational costs and simple financial calculations such as payback period. Experience in facilities, engineering, sustainability, finance, procurement, project delivery or public infrastructure is helpful. Participants should be comfortable interpreting tables, charts and spreadsheet outputs. Prior renewable energy project experience is not required. The course does not assume electrical engineering design capability, advanced power-system modelling, programming knowledge or specialist software certification. Technical concepts are introduced sufficiently for informed project appraisal and decision-making.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need basic familiarity with electricity use, energy costs and simple financial calculations. Renewable energy experience, electrical engineering qualifications and specialist modelling software knowledge are not required.

Bring a laptop for spreadsheet-based analysis and, where permitted, recent utility bills, interval data or a proposed energy-project idea. Participants without workplace data can use the supplied project case.

It suits energy, sustainability, facilities, project, procurement and finance professionals involved in energy decisions. It is also relevant to public-sector infrastructure teams and organisations planning lower-carbon expansion.

This course addresses multiple renewable technologies, storage, project economics, procurement, grid connection and delivery governance. It does not train participants to produce detailed electrical designs or conduct formal energy audits.

Participants can use the screening, appraisal, risk and procurement methods to assess an active project or identify a new opportunity. The final business case can form the basis for internal review, consultant briefing or supplier engagement.

The first part establishes demand analysis, technology selection, resource assessment and early project economics. The later modules focus on financing, procurement, delivery, operations, reporting and the final business-case presentation; each day runs 08:30-16:30 with about 6.5 contact hours.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.