LANSING — Most community college electrical programs teach solar — but Alpena Community College will soon be the first in Michigan where students can train on their own full-scale solar array.

The solar panels will provide valuable hands-on education while generating 72% of the campus’s power, school officials said. Construction of the 6-acre array will be finished in fall 2026.

Such experience will make the students stand out as prospective workers, leaders in Michigan’s solar industry say. Indeed, it’s likely to set them on a fast-track to top positions.

“If students are looking to get into the industry, it’s extremely helpful to actually have boots on the ground and understand all of the processes,” said Rob Rafson, the president of Muskegon-based solar development firm Chart House Energy.

The solar project is funded by a $4.6 million renewable energy development grant from the Public Service Commission, said Dawn Stone, the college’s dean of workforce development.

Electrical systems technology students will assemble and disassemble panels in construction and maintenance scenarios, program instructor Wesley Repke said.

They’ll also learn how to control and program the entire array through its central computer.

“Instead of just talking about it in the classroom and assigning variables to it, we can actually go out and show them how it’s done,” Repke said.

Students will acquire skills with the array that can’t be built with textbooks or simulations, he said — and it’s expected to cut training time in half for their first job in the field.

Current graduates of the program are nearly guaranteed employment in the energy industry, Repke said.

Employers like Consumers Energy and DTE Energy actively seek graduates from energy programs like Alpena Community College’s, he said.

“If you want in, you get in,” he said.

And with hands-on solar experience, Rafson said graduates can directly apply for energy practitioner certification — a necessary step to get higher-level jobs like planning and design in any electrical field.

“A maintenance person’s initial pay can be $20 to $25 an hour,” he said. “If you’re talking about design people, they would start in the $35-$40 range and maybe go up to $50-$60.”

Field experience will become critical as the solar job market expands and becomes more competitive, said Jessica Woycehoski, Consumers Energy’s renewable operations executive director.

Under Michigan law, renewable energy is supposed to meet 60% of the state’s energy needs by 2035, up from 15%, Woycehoski said.

“There’s inevitably going to be a high demand for individuals that know how to work and understand solar technology,” she said.

An estimated 1,620 electrician and electrical engineering positions will be added to the state’s job market by 2032, according to 2022 projections from the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics.

While Alpena-area residents largely support the campus solar array, Stone said, some have expressed concerns online that the project will degrade the land and have a low return-on-investment.

Opposition to solar farms in Northern Michigan has recently risen in response to projects like the proposed 420-acre array near Gaylord, with critics questioning whether it’s the best use for the land.

“Support was initially very good, but I would say that people are struggling with information,” Stone said of the campus project. “Our responsibility is to make sure that our community is well-informed as to what the project will look like.”

Alpena Community College’s solar array will be constructed by Jackson-based developer Harvest Solar.

Other solar projects at Michigan community colleges include smaller arrays at Delta College in University Center, Bay County, and North Central Michigan College in Petoskey, which produce enough electricity to power a small home.