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10 | DECEMBER 2020 | UTILITY WEEK Voices of the Future Analysis Voices of the future Adam John talks to the five winners of the Young Energy Professionals Awards 2020 to gauge their views on everything from decarbonisation to the views of the next generation of sector leaders on everything from decarbonisation to diversity. With millennials and Generation Z widely regarded as the most climate change con- scious age groups, the energy sector should be an easy sell as a career option. But how do these generations really view the industry and are the stereotypes changing? Taking up arms against climate change Now a product manager at Centrica, award winner Matthew Young says that before he began his career he viewed "energy" as almost "a dirty word". "I think a lot of my friends who know me would call me a bit of a hypocrite for joining the energy sector with my fairly le- leaning political views. My opinion has really changed over the past five years. I don't know whether that's due to under- standing how the world works a bit better or understanding the drive towards net zero and working towards reversing the impact of climate change. I think it's going to be driven a lot by private companies moving forward." Rubina Singh, a lead e-mobility technolo- gist at Centrica, has spent much of her career to date examining solar technology and has seen interest in the subject grow. She says: "When I started out my studies in sustainable energy engineering and then my first job as a solar engineer, it was at one of the first universities that was offering this degree. I would oen have to explain to peo- ple what solar engineering is, I feel like the industry was still quite sceptical if this would work. This was almost ten years ago so since then it's so great to see how there's no ques- tion about whether solar storage can work. We know that this is an answer, we need to decarbonise and renewable energy is a solu- tion. I think over the past few years we have also seen this increased uptake in electric vehicles [EVs] I feel like the two industries are converging now because everything can be run on electricity. "I think it's a very exciting time and its really great to see that we understand and realise the urgency of climate change and how these technologies can help us move to a net zero future." Gemma Harvey-Cole, a project engineer at National Grid, says when she first began working in the sector there was not much in the way of information about potential career paths. "That's changed considerably in the last ten years. I see lots of events with STEM [science, technology, engineering and math- ematics], Big Bang events which encourage school and college students into the industry which I think is really good. It's phenomenal how much has changed in the last ten years that I've been in the industry." Rajan Patel, a UK onshore project man- ager at Siemens Energy, found the sector quite "alien" before he began working at Siemens. "Energy is only one word but it relates to a lot more things than coal and gas. You have solar, wind and hydrogen, which is some- thing I didn't know a lot about before I joined Siemens. More than anything it opened my eyes. Energy is one word but it actually means a lot of different things. There's a lot to look into that's for sure." Lead project manager at National Grid Rodney Williams says the rise in renewables has changed his perception of the sector. Fur- thermore, challenges around net zero and sustainability mean it's imperative to encour- age young people to be part of the solution. "Things need to change and we need young people and others to be part of that solution," he says.