recruitment to the sector
Recruiting staff local to windfarms Siemens has established a comprehensive training and
When Siemens contracts to supply and im- conversion centre for technical staff in Newcastle upon Tyne.
plement an offshore wind farm, the procedure
is the same each time round. “The absolute
Additional training is needed to handle the more sophisticated
key to a project’s success is that the right
number of skills are available when we start.
electronics of the current generation of 3.6 MW turbines.
Almost by definition, offshore wind farms are
not built near large cities. Local advertising
may attract the core of the skills involved, but
will have to bring in some other skillsets from
elsewhere in the country or overseas.
“Project management is an example. That
requires a particular level of experience and
understanding of the process by which we
build and commission offshore wind farms.
We have access to those resources across our
European footprint.
“We send our project managers to Denmark
for a year’s familiarisation, to ensure that they
have the network and process knowledge to
work in our team.”
200% increase since 2007
Dan Simpson’s comment about the scale of
employment in the wind power sector is worth
examining further. Certainly, the number of
staff employed by that division of Siemens
It could not be ruled out in the future, More
Energy has increased by a factor of three since
likely in the short to medium term is that we
2007. While that is impressive in growth terms,
would work on joint training programmes with
the total number currently still stands at
our customers.”
around 300.
The HR Department is committed to recruit-
ing a further 83 people before the end of the
In the hands of government policy
present financial year in September 2009 as
Everything that Chris Ehlers and Dan Simpson
‘unskilled’ staff and training them to service
have reported must be taken at face value. They
wind turbines.
are well-intentioned, but their actions and
That additional resource has to be seen in
those of Siemens Energy are necessarily
the context of a full spectrum of sales staff,
predicated by government policy over the next
commercial project controllers and advanced
half decade.
electronics engineers.
DECC Secretaries will change; Treasury
commitments will be forced to change by cir-
Windpower ‘university’ unlikely
cumstances, and a future administration may
seek to change the balance between ROCs,
It is unlikely that Siemens and the other lead-
for example, and Feed-In Tariffs, a widely pre-
ing vendors would collaborate closely over a
ferred alternative incentive programme,
‘university for the renewables’ along the lines
An element of certainty would go a long way
of the ‘nuclear university’ which has been tak-
to assuring the demand for renewable energy,
ing shape to provide a range of skills for that
incentivising the investment which underlies
sector.
it, and allowing the vendors – of which Sie-
As Simpson noted, renewable energy is still
mens is an accepted market leader – to get on
Above: Staff responsible for
young, highly competitive, and closely guards
with what they are patently good at doing.
maintaining advanced offshore
its secrets. “It would be difficult to see us work-
Removing uncertainty will probably be the
wind turbines learn the addi-
ing alongside our major competitors in a
greatest boost to investment and employment
tional skill of abseiling down the
shared training environment at this early stage.
in the sector. §
column into a boat below.
The Informed Executive
17
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