Carbon News

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Engineers at the new British Gas Green Skills Training Centre

British Gas has officially opened what it claims is the "UK's first" green skills training centre in South Wales, with the aim of training people in tasks such as installing renewable energy technologies.

The company, which forms part of energy giant Centrica, opened the facility in Tredegar last week (May 13) at a ceremony attended by the First Minister for Wales, Carwyn Jones.

The aim is for the 'Green Skills Training Centre' to train more than 1,300 people each year, including local long-term unemployed people. According to British Gas, the Heads of the Valleys area has the lowest employment rate in Wales, at 64%, compared with 71% nationally.

Developed in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Goverment, JobMatch, Jobcentre Plus, SummitSkills and Blaenau Gwent county borough council, the "state-of-the-art" centre will offer training and qualifications for would-be energy efficiency assessors and installers of new green technologies, as well as providing opportunities for British Gas engineers to increase their skills.

Gearóid Lane, British Gas' managing director of communities and new energy, said: "This fantastic new facility is a blueprint for British Gas' wider ambition to be the hub around which communities benefit from upskilling, green living and improvements in household comfort and energy affordability."

He added that British Gas was already investing heavily in the sector, through the creation of thousands of smart meter and insulation engineer jobs, but that the company also wanted to help equip local people with the skills to deliver these "emerging technologies" in the communities where they live.

Mr Jones said: "The British Gas Green Skills Training Centre presents 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 helping to achieve this."

Technology

The Green Skills Training Centre features fully functioning heating installations and energy efficient and microgeneration technologies housed in specially designed bungalows - from ‘single brick' construction to timber-framed properties.

It aims to provide the best possible hands-on practice and experience, reflecting the challenges trainees could encounter as qualified energy assessors or installation engineers.

Among the ‘green' technologies on show at the centre are smart gas and electricity meters, solar thermal panels, solar photovoltaic panels that generate hot water and electricity, combined heat and power boilers which use waste heat to generate power and ground-source heat pumps.