Analysis: British skills for low-carbon energy generation

With the deputy prime minister's visit to the Centrica Lincs Windfarm in Grimsby earlier this month the focus is now on British jobs for British workers in low-carbon technologies. Mark Banham reports.

As the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg stared out of his helicopter window circling Centrica’s Lincs Windfarm just off Grimsby it’s probably fair to assume he was going over his speech that would trumpet that the Britain’s latest offshore installation

During his speech he would stipulate that the new platform would have “the potential to power thousands of homes with clean energy and boost the local economy by bringing jobs to the region.”

Accompanying that government was to claim that offshore windfarms could unlock a £7 billion boost in 2020, based on reaching 16GW of installed capacity more than any of the future energy scenarios recently modelled by National Grid, which suggest up to 13.5GW is realistic.

A package to increase the nascent industry’s presence would include £20 million from the Regional Growth Fund to advise on supply chain competitiveness; £46 million over five years for the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult centre to coordinate innovation between industry, government and academia; and an Offshore Wind Investment Organisation to attract foreign money.

The Deputy Prime Minister also insisted that investing in renewable energy generation would create 30,000 jobs by 2020.

Foreign investment

What wasn’t mentioned was that with foreign investment come foreign skills, an issue that David Cameron’s adjutant failed to address, despite a damning television report that had been broadcast the previous night and had levelled accusations of a dearth of British employment in the windpower industry.

This coupled with revelations that only 30 per cent of windfarm parts come from UK business from trade body EEF threatened to overshadow the windfarm launch.

Somewhat predictably the opening whipped up the “British jobs for British workers” debate.

Centrica has since defended this position with a flurry of statistics. It states that its Grimsby operations and maintenance base, which opened in September last year to service the Centrica Lincs, Lynn and Inner Dowsing windfarms, employs a joint team of Centrica and Siemens staff to service the 129 wind turbines that make up the three wind farms.

It even went so far as to break down the numbers. At Grimsby the 35-strong Centrica team all live locally as do 57 of the 69 Siemens staff (the main manufacturer of the Centrica windfarms), and from September 2013, a further 11 UK apprentices will be joining the 8 that already work across the three wind farms.

Centrica also says that Siemens has invested more than £9m in its energy service training centre in Newcastle, which includes its globally accredited wind power training school. It also pioneered the Wind Turbine Service apprenticeship with Renewable UK in 2010.

Managing director of Centrica Energy’s Power business, Simon Merriweather defends the accusations that there is too much of a pendulum swing towards using foreign workers to construct and maintain UK windfarms.

“Centrica Energy believes that the development of offshore wind is vital to the UK’s future energy security so the potential for Grimsby and the wider region to become a major hub for the industry is an exciting one,” he says.

“The opening of our new operations and maintenance base in Grimsby last year was a huge step for us as a business and great news for the region in terms of local investment and job opportunities.”

Partnership with goverment

Industry body RenewableUK says it is working in partnership with the government to deliver even more UK jobs in the wind industry, and increase the amount of UK-produced content of our wind farms “everything from blades and turbine towers to cables and electronics”.

Maf Smith, deputy chief executive says that the government-created Offshore Wind Industrial Strategy will encourage “British green-collar job creation, with major manufacturing facilities established in the UK and a healthy supply chain”.

He says that his organisation is taking this even further: “RenewableUK is attracting skilled recruits from other energy sectors into the offshore wind industry with initiatives like the Renewables Training Network to help to bridge the skills gap.”

Smith says that there are already more than 12,000 people working full-time in the UK wind industry, and that’s set to rise to “more than 70,000 by the start of the 2020s”, outstripping even the government’s target.

Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary, of trade union Unite says the employment of a British skills base in the renewables sector is not just an aim for government, but an obligation: “The government has a key role to play in using procurement intelligently in addressing, social disadvantage, youth employment and skills shortages”, she says.

Cartmail adds that there is already a “framework agreement” for targets for British worker numbers at another high-profile low-carbon technology project, EDF Energy’s proposed new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. She says that that this “provides a blueprint” for British job creation in the energy sector and will maximise “employment opportunities for people from the Regional and UK population” and leave a “project legacy of skills and capability, both locally and nationally”.

She does admit that “the UK is lagging behind other countries, where responsible procurement by government and investment in a skills legacy are both givens”.

One thing is for sure, we can expect to see increased investment in low-carbon and windpower energy it’s now up to the government to make sure that this investment is mirrored by investment in British jobs.