Scotland will not have the skilled workforce it needs to meet renewable-energy targets for 2020 unless changes are made, education experts said yesterday.
Industry recruitment is being hampered by mixed messages about the sector in the media, a lack of promotion of the career path in schools, cuts to college funding and courses which do not equip people with the skills needed to enter employment, MSPs on Holyrood’s energy committee were told.
The Scottish Government aims to generate the equivalent of 100% of electricity demand from renewable sources by 2020 by developing offshore wind and tidal energy.
Giving evidence to the committee as part of an inquiry into the target, Linda Greig, director of business and sponsorship at Carnegie College, at Dunfermline, outlined some of the problems. She said there was not enough awareness within the education sector of the kind of jobs available in renewables and it was not seen as an attractive career path.
Leading figures in the sector in the north and north-east begged to differ last night. Morag McCorkindale, chief operating officer at Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, said: “A significant number of initiatives and apprenticeship schemes have been established to attract skilled people into renewables.
“Many of these schemes are industry driven by companies such as SSE, Scottish Power and Bi-Fab. Universities and colleges have also established renewables-related courses, with Banff and Buchan’s Green Energy Academy just one example.”
Simon Grey, chief executive at Inverness-based wavepower developer AWS Ocean Energy, said: “Renewables offers an opportunity of a lifetime for our young people. It is a massively exciting time just now . . . with widely varying opportunities and the feel-good factor of helping to keep the lights on and save the planet.”
MSPs also heard from Jim Brown, director of Scotland’s Colleges Energy Skills Partnership, and Sean Smith, of the Institute for Sustainable Construction and professor of construction innovation at Napier University, who highlighted concerns about renewables apprenticeships and government funding.
Glasgow-based renewables firm Absolute Solar and Wind said yesterday it was about to open a new office in Inverness, bringing about 20 jobs to the area.
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