Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/732537
UTILITY WEEK | 30TH SEPTEMBER - 6TH OCTOBER 2016 | 19 electricity back to shore – now complete (pictured), work will begin on the installation of the second substation and the foundations for the huge 6MW turbines. Work is expected to be completed in the latter part of 2018. When opera- tional, Race Bank will have a capacity of up to 580MW and will produce enough electricity to power more than half a million UK homes every year. If you have an asset or project you would like to see featured in this slot, email: paulnewton@fav-house.com Pipe up Dave Berry The government has pledged that 53 million smart meters need to be installed in more than 27 million homes by 2020. The potential benefits of this are consid- ered to be vast: it could help cut energy consumption by tracking where resources are wasted, therefore reducing costs for customers and the environmental impacts. However, by our current forecasts, we need another 6,500 smart meter engineers to help us fit the meters and reach this ambitious target – a significant amount when we only have another four years to achieve it. So where will these qualified engineers come from? One solution is through providing tradespeople with the information and opportunity to upskill into smart metering. Across many industries, the idea of a 'job for life' is quickly becoming outdated: many workers prefer to look for new opportunities and use transferable skills to move into different roles. Smart metering could offer already skilled workers this chance to retrain in a rewarding career within a similar industry. The extra qualifica- tions could also give them an impressive edge when hoping to progress into supervisory and management roles in the future. At the moment, unfortunately, this message is not widely enough heard, and industry leaders need to do more to make upskilling an accessible and realistic option to tradespeople. Business owners and energy companies can also support this by adding to investment in upskilling and training, which at the moment is severely lacking. This should be complemented with encouraging new entrants into this career path too; prospective installers do not need to have previous industry experience to be trained in smart metering. For people considering a career change, or perhaps who have been made redundant, smart metering can offer a secure and rewarding job. I would argue that this could also be more effectively communicated – many people who are looking for a change of profession may not be aware of the job ben- efits and potential roles available to them in the energy sector when qualified. With undoubtedly a number of talented individuals trying to settle into a skilled career path, energy executives should be trying to speak to this audience about the options available to them. Although skills shortages across a number of indus- tries are no secret, bringing talent into smart metering, in particular, is urgently needed to allow for this huge infrastructure goal to be met. Leaders need to act now to improve the way tradespeople and prospective engineers are communicated with, or we will face a huge shortfall. Dave Berry, director, ECTA Training "Bringing talent into smart metering is urgently needed to allow for this huge infrastructure goal to be met" Operations & Assets Industry leaders need to do more to make upskilling an accessible and realistic option