British Gas opens green training centre
Greenwise Staff
13th May 2010
British Gas has today opened a new training centre in Wales that aims to provide people with the right skills to work in the rapidly expanding renewable energy sector.
The
British Gas Green Skills Training Centre opened this morning in Tredegar, South Wales. Backed by the Welsh Assembly Government, it will offer training and qualifications for 1,300 would-be e
nergy efficiency assessors and installers of
new green technologies every year.
The state-of-the-art centre showcases the various different
energy efficient technologies such as smart gas and electricity meters, solar thermal panels and ground source heat pumps. In addition trainee engineers get to test out their skills in specially designed bungalows containing fully functioning heating systems that use microgeneration technologies.
As well as offering training opportunities in one of the most deprived parts of Wales, British Gas said it planned to use the centre to upskill its own engineers. The company is creating 2,600 new roles in a new smart metering business and a further 1,100 insulation engineering jobs.
"We are investing heavily in this rapidly growing sector […] But we also want to help equip local people with the skills to deliver these emerging
technologies in the communities where they live," said British Gas’ Communities and New Energy managing director Gearóid Lane.
Carwyn Jones, First Minister of the Welsh Assembly Government, officially opened the centre today and said it offered "an excellent opportunity to support Wales’ green energy potential. Earlier this year we launched our Green Jobs Strategy for Wales, which aims to develop skilled jobs for local people and the centre will play an important role in key part helping to achieve this."
Other partners invovled in the project include JobMatch, Jobcentre Plus, SummitSkills and Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council.
Last month, renewable energy manufacturer Stiebel Eltron and training provider Scientiam announced they would be opening a
£280,0000 green energy training centre focused on microgeneration technologies on Merseyside later this year.
Related news:
Green HR news
Renewable energy news
Energy efficiency news