The Department of Energy announced the release of the new Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades.  Energy improvement programs and homeowners can adopt these guidelines to increase the consistency and effectiveness of energy upgrades, and training providers can use them to improve course curricula and training materials.  These guidelines were developed through a collaboration between energy efficiency contractors, building scientists, health and safety experts, technicians and trainers in the weatherization program, and other professionals in the building and home energy upgrade industry.

The Workforce Guidelines include standard work specifications required for high-quality work, a reference guide for technical standards and codes, analysis of the job tasks involved in completing various energy efficiency improvements, and the minimum qualifications workers should possess to perform high quality work.  Identifying the knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform efficiency upgrades represents an important step in developing a nationwide framework for training program accreditation and worker certification.