With the launch of the new educational hub ‘LearnWind’, WindEurope aims to inspire the talents of tomorrow to pursue a career in wind energy. The new hub offers basic explanations about wind energy, a new book on job profiles in clean energy, teaching resources and hands-on activities.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that the total number of jobs in the wider field of energy could increase from 58 million in 2017 to 100 million globally by 2050. Already today wind employs 1.2 million people globally and 300,000 people in Europe alone. Expanding the skill base will require more vocational training, stronger curricula, dedicated teacher training and enhanced technology use. But some experts fear a shortage of skilled labour and young talent in the renewable energy sector that could slow down the global energy transition. In a recent Deloitte Renewable Energy Transition Survey, respondents identified the lack of skilled staff as one of the main challenges for companies during the energy transition.
With the LearnWind hub, WindEurope wants to help tackling this challenge. LearnWind includes a variety of educational materials for children of different age groups. Dedicated books and pictures illustrate basic concepts of climate change, renewable energy and the functioning of modern wind turbines to younger kids. Teaching resources enable parents and teachers to explain the advantages of wind energy to young students. And new Offshorewind4kids projects teach basic engineering skills to kids in a practical way, building floating wind turbine structures at the seaside.
The new book ‘When I Grow Up’ gathers inspiring stories from 21 people working in clean energy. It shows a wide spectrum of different job profiles, among others portraying wind energy pioneer Hendrik Stiesdal, Google’s Brian Denvir, Microsoft’s Vanessa Miler-Fels, IRENA’s Rabia Ferroukhi and Jos De Krieger, a Dutch architect who designed children’s playgrounds made of recycled wind turbine blades. ‘When I Grow Up’ is now available in English, with other language versions to follow soon.