Emerging offshore wind markets will need over 77,000 trained workers by 2024 to support growth targets, a new Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) report has found.
‘Powering the Future: Global Offshore Wind Workforce Outlook 2020-2024′ provides “qualitative analysis” of the workforce training needs to deliver 31GW of forecast installations in North America, China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea.
The study determined that two and a half persons per megawatt per project are needed to deliver the 31GW forecast for these six markets in the next four years.
GWEC and the Global Wind Organisation (GWO) published the report, produced in collaboration with Renewables Consulting Group.
‘Powering the Future’ also highlighted “key workforce supply chain bottlenecks” to be addressed in order to deliver industry training at scale.
Barriers identified include a lack of training centres, lack of familiarity with standards and risk of standards being perceived as “imposed” and unreflective of local context.
“The COVID-19 crisis will pose a new challenge to both workforce and turbine supply chains to reach the world’s offshore wind ambitions,” stated the study.
GWEC chief executive Ben Backwell said: “The appetite for offshore wind is strong among investors and policymakers as more and more ambitious targets are put in place, but we need a trained workforce ready to realise these goals.”
He said the findings in the report are an “important tool” to match global market trends with local training needs and build a “coherent roadmap for thriving offshore wind industries in emerging markets”.
“These markets are moving faster than we have ever seen before, and it is crucial that workforce training keeps up to build a good reputation for the sector and ensure growth opportunities for years to come,” Backwell said.
GWO chief executive Jakob Lau Holst added: “Having a GWO trained workforce is often the missing piece of the puzzle when considering a new offshore wind project in any given market, but this should be seen as a top priority in nascent markets to secure their long-term growth and create thousands of local jobs.
“GWO already has training centres in China, the US and Taiwan, but we will need to ramp up training centres in these regions drastically to train the necessary workforce of almost 78,000 people.”
The impacts of COVID-19 on both workforce and turbine supply chain are yet to be fully quantified, said the organisations.
GWEC expects there to be “minor impacts” for the markets highlighted in the report.
GWO has begun rolling out digital training platforms to continue training the workforce during the crisis.
The study’s findings use GWO training data and GWEC’s market intelligence forecasts, combined with data from Renewables Consulting Group’s database plus industry interviews.