About this course

Three things make BESS quality a genuinely distinct discipline from the PV work most students bring, and the course is organized around them:

•    The scope is largely invisible. On a tracker project, a trained eye walking the rows catches most of what matters. On a battery project, the defects that end up costing real money live inside a sealed enclosure, in firmware, or in a dataset. The inspection skill being taught is therefore split: read the hardware and read the data.

•    The supplier is a black box. Owners buy an integrated product from an integrator who buys cells from an OEM that will not open its factory. Quality assurance becomes contract-and-records work long before it becomes field work — which is why factory quality gets its own module here and had no equivalent in the solar course.

•    The guarantees are measurable, and someone will measure them. Capacity, round-trip efficiency, availability, and the degradation curve are all quantifiable metrics with financial implications, tested at year zero and retested annually for a decade or more. Quality work either produces defensible baselines or it produces arguments.

Subjects covered

Energy Storage Utilities Solar + Storage Electrical Transmission

Learning Objectives

  • Manage nonconformances, root cause and turnover so that the record set survives into operations and supports claims for the life of the asset.
  • Explain why BESS quality is a distinct discipline from PV quality. This means identifying where battery defects hide (in sealed enclosures, firmware and data) and why records, not inspections alone, determine whether a warranty claim succeeds.
  • Structure an owner's quality program across a multi-party contract chain. This covers separating quality assurance, quality control and commissioning, assigning ownership of scope seams, and using flow-down terms to reach suppliers the owner has no contract with.
  • Translate contracts, standards and guarantees into requirements an inspector can verify. This includes resolving conflicts between documents, defining guarantee test conditions, and placing hold points where work becomes irreversible.
  • Secure factory quality through contract terms and traceability, treating cells as a population rather than a part. This includes witnessing factory acceptance tests and maintaining chain of custody from factory to final position.
  • Inspect the physical installation for the defects that cost the most. This spans receiving, siting, anchorage, thermal management, fire systems, terminations, bonding and auxiliary power.
  • Read quality data as distributions to detect defects that pass/fail records conceal, in torque, insulation resistance, temperature, cell voltage and nonconformance data.
  • Verify the controls and communications chain, including interface ownership, failsafe behavior, end-to-end signal checkout and configuration change control.
  • Plan and witness commissioning and performance testing that produces a defensible year-zero baseline, and verify functional safety by causing the condition being tested.

Course outline

10 modules
1 - 6 hours to complete
1. Orientation Materials
This course is self-paced, so you don’t need to be logged in at any specific time. You can get started immediately after you enroll and the course materials will remain in your account with minimum guaranteed access for 12 months (1 year) after enrollment.
2. Why Battery Quality Fails Differently
The enclosures arrive at Ocotillo Draw looking identical. Two hundred and forty of them. Somewhere inside is the one that will define your next four years.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Explain why a defect's cost curve on a battery project is steeper and shorter than on a PV project, and where the inflection points sit
  • Distinguish QA, QC, and commissioning as three jobs with three owners, and name who holds each on a typical BESS contract structure
  • Identify the contractual gap created by the cell OEM sitting two tiers below the owner with no privity
  • State when the degradation and warranty clocks start, and what starts them

3. Contracts, Standards, and the Rules of the Game
The Ocotillo Draw quality exhibit runs six pages. Meridian's installation and commissioning manuals run four hundred. When they conflict, which one governs?

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Navigate the BESS standards landscape and identify which document governs a given field dispute
  • Read a capacity and RTE guarantee as a set of test conditions, and spot the conditions that decide the verdict
  • Distinguish a hold point from a witness point and place both correctly in an ITP
  • Rewrite an unverifiable specification sentence into one with an acceptance criterion, a method, and a record

4. Factory Quality, FAT and Traceability
Meridian's FAT report says all 240 modules passed. Three of the serial numbers don't appear on any shipping manifest. This module has no solar equivalent.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Describe the cell manufacturing variables that drive field performance and which of them are recoverable after delivery (very few)
  • Specify a FAT scope that produces usable evidence, and identify the three things a FAT report routinely omits
  • Define cell-level traceability requirements and explain why serialization depth is a contract term, not an IT preference
  • Assess transport and storage risk: shipping SOC, dwell time, temperature exposure, and the state a battery should arrive in

5. Receiving, Siting, and Mechanical Installation
The first fourteen enclosures land at Ocotillo Draw on a Friday. The receiving inspector has ninety minutes before the trucks leave, and the seals are all intact.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Run a receiving inspection that survives a later damage claim, including impact indicators, seal integrity, and arrival SOC
  • Verify foundation, anchorage, and leveling against seismic and OEM tolerances
  • Check separation distances, deflagration vent orientation, and egress against the approved fire plan rather than the drawing set
  • Inspect liquid cooling loops and HVAC installation for defects that only present under summer load

6. Electrical QA/QC: Racks, PCS, and the MV Collection
Six thousand DC terminations inside sealed enclosures. You can sample them now, or find the loose one in year two by its infrared signature and smell.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Design a torque verification program at rack scale, including as-found readings and calibration control
  • Interpret IR and continuity results as a population rather than a pass/fail checkbox
  • Verify grounding and bonding across the DC block, PCS, and enclosure, and identify the joints that are routinely missed
  • Inspect MV terminations, transformer receipt condition, and the auxiliary power scope that falls between contracts



7. Controls, Communications, and the BMS/EMS Chain
Every enclosure at Ocotillo Draw is installed, torqued, and inspected. The plant still does nothing because the scope that makes a battery a battery has no photographs.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Map the control and communication chain and identify the handoffs where responsibility is typically undefined
  • Run and document a point-to-point checkout that proves an alarm reaches the operator, not just the panel
  • Establish firmware and setpoint version control, and explain why an undocumented firmware push is a nonconformance
  • Recognize "preliminary settings" language and distinguish an engineered interim value from a placeholder

8. Commissioning, Performance Testing, and Safety
The capacity test is scheduled for a 108-degree week in August, and the integrator would very much like to run it at night. Both facts are about money.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Sequence commissioning activities correctly and identify which tests must precede the energization boundary
  • Witness a capacity and RTE test against contract conditions — temperature, SOC window, rate, auxiliary load boundary, and measurement point
  • Verify functional safety systems by test rather than by submittal, including the failure modes that are never exercised
  • Apply LOTO and arc flash practice to a system that cannot be de-energized, and confirm the emergency response plan is real

9. Nonconformance, Records, Turnover and the Long Tail
Substantial completion is three weeks out. Rack 44 has been drifting for a month; the IE has a records finding, and the Year-1 retest is already on somebody's calendar.

Learning objectives — by the end, the student can:
  • Write an NCR that defines the affected population rather than the discovered instance, and invoke a serial-defect clause correctly
  • Conduct a root cause analysis that terminates at a system, and reject conclusions that terminate at a person
  • Assemble a turnover package that supports a warranty claim years later, including the baseline dataset O&M will need
  • Distinguish punch items from completion criteria, and identify the deferred item that is degrading while it waits

10. Feedback and Additional Resources
This is our last module but you still have access to the all of course materials for 12 months (1 year), so keep working and you'll be able to complete the course at your own pace. After your year of access expires you can optionally extend access with a HeatSpring Membership. Enjoy the course and keep in touch!

Instructor

Julie Stiglish

Managing Member, JS Renewable Energy Group

Julie Stiglish Owner & Managing Member, JS Renewable Energy Group LLC A 25-year electrical construction veteran, Julie Stiglish has spent the past 16 years in utility-scale solar — the side of the fence where quality is either built in or paid for later. She is the founder of JS Renewable Energy Group, a woman-owned consulting firm based in Arizona that provides...

Frequently asked questions

Full FAQ
How does this course work?
This course is delivered entirely online. Pre-order courses are available on launch date. This course is self-paced and you can set your own schedule to complete the materials. During your year of access the instructor will be in the course answering questions on the discussion board. After successfully completing the course, you will be able to generate a certificate of completion.
How long do I have access to the materials?
Students can pre-order but will not be able to access the full course materials or earn a certificate of completion until the course is fully published. Once the course is published any students who have pre-ordered will then have access to the course materials for one year (365 days). After the one year of access expires, access can be extended with a HeatSpring subscription (Plus or Pro). A single subscription extends access to course materials for all past enrollments.
Will the instructor really answer my questions during this course?
Yes! This is an instructor-led online course. You can ask questions on the discussion board and get prompt answers from your instructor. It varies by instructor and by course but typically instructors check-in between daily and weekly to check quiz results or project work, review and respond to discussion board questions and read survey responses. Check the enrollment page for specific information about each instructor's check-in frequency.
Is there a certificate of completion?
Yes, when you complete this course you are eligible for a certificate of completion from HeatSpring. You can download your certificate as soon as you have completed all of the course requirements. Students can easily share their verified certificates on their LinkedIn profiles using our LinkedIn integration.
Can I register multiple people?
Yes, please visit our For Teams page to get a group discount.

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