Design or coordinate design of photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal systems, including system components, for residential and commercial buildings.

“Design or coordinate design of photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal systems, including system components, for residential and commercial buildings.” is a core task performed by Solar Energy Systems Engineers. Among the occupation's 13 rated tasks, workers place it 11th by importance (#3 most important). About 89% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Develop systems or practices to mitigate or resolve environmental problems. in Thinking Creatively

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T1.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Conduct engineering site audits to collect structural, electrical, and related site information for use in the design of residential or commercial solar power systems. · importance 4.5
• Create plans for solar energy system development, monitoring, and evaluation activities. · importance 4.4
• Provide technical direction or support to installation teams during installation, start-up, testing, system commissioning, or performance monitoring. · importance 4.3
• Create electrical single-line diagrams, panel schedules, or connection diagrams for solar electric systems, using computer-aided design (CAD) software. · importance 4.2
• Perform computer simulation of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation system performance or energy production to optimize efficiency. · importance 4.1
• Review specifications and recommend engineering or manufacturing changes to achieve solar design objectives. · importance 3.9
• Develop design specifications and functional requirements for residential, commercial, or industrial solar energy systems or components. · importance 3.8
• Develop standard operation procedures and quality or safety standards for solar installation work. · importance 3.6
• Create checklists for review or inspection of completed solar installation projects. · importance 3.6
• Perform thermal, stress, or cost reduction analyses for solar systems. · importance 3.2
• Test or evaluate photovoltaic (PV) cells or modules. · importance 2.9
• Design or develop vacuum tube collector systems for solar applications. · importance 1.8

See all tasks on the Solar Energy Systems Engineers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-16574,
  title  = {Design or coordinate design of photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal systems, including system components, for residential and commercial buildings.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-16574}
}