Establishment of a secretariat; benchmarking, recruitment and selection

The task list included providing a clear SAPVIA organogram as well as an organizational structure. Additionally, CEO and Policy Officers job descriptions and role descriptions were also required.

An industry matrix to compare similar roles in the industry was established.

Throughout the process, AltGen played an active role in advertising and sourcing for the positions to attract the best potential applicants and ensure transparency for all interested parties.

Administrative processes such as references, background checks, qualification verifications, interviewing and shortlisting were all conducted on behalf of SAPVIA. Additionally, assistance with the final decision-making process and negotiations was required.

AltGen was successful in placing all roles pertaining to this mandate.

Socio-economic development plan

AltGen created a Socio-Economic Development Plan for a 75MW PV project located on the West Coast of South Africa.

This entailed carrying out a detailed community needs assessment to determine the critical socio-economic related initiatives and associated areas of intervention for local communities within 50km of the site.

The needs identified were based on social ills such as alcohol, drug and domestic abuse as well as job creation and skills development. AltGen provided a high-level strategy to implement critical initiatives with an integrated development approach with the Department of Energy, key community members, municipal stakeholders as well as other independent power producers as essential partners.

The proposal supported the creation of a best practice community monitoring and reporting system in line with developmental best practices.

Communities needs assessments for bid submission

The brief was to carry out detailed community needs assessments in the towns adjacent to a wind and solar PV facility. This was done by finding the relevant communities and the statutory as well as non-statutory organisations that function within them to form a basis for the development of a high-level stakeholder matrix from which to conduct an initial needs analysis of potential areas identified for intervention including environmental, education, healthcare, skills development, and enterprise development.

The needs assessments were successfully concluded with appropriate project plans and with minimal disruption to the communities, and subsequently, both projects that were supported were successful bidders into the REIPP bid window round four of the South African renewable energy programme. Due care was taken not to increase community expectations of the arrival of mass jobs and socio-economic opportunities once the facilities were awarded preferred bidder status.

Primary school pupil on recess in a rural community in the Northern Cape.

Job localisation in the REIPP

The broad aim of the project was to establish career pathways and a broad overview of the skills demand within the RE sector in South Africa, with a focus on the Northern Cape to establish if there was potential to invest in a Renewable Energy Centre of Excellence (RECE) in Upington.

Defining the career pathways and skills demands were undertaken in parallel and were to contribute toward an understanding of skills development and RE policy as well as legislative drivers within South Africa. An interactive predictive Growth Model was created, and the job intensity of the various technologies was investigated, with a jobs/MW baseline used to understand the job potential of RE according to various scenarios.

Renewable energy and energy efficiency career pathways and the skills gap, with special reference to the Northern Cape

The broad aim of the project was to establish career pathways and a broad overview of the skills demand within the renewable energy sector in South Africa, with a focus on the Northern Cape to establish if there was potential to invest in a Renewable Energy Centre of Excellence (RECE) in Upington.

Defining the career pathways and skills demands were undertaken in parallel and were to contribute toward an understanding of skills development and renewable energy policy as well as legislative drivers within South Africa.

An interactive predictive Growth Model was created, and the job intensity of the various technologies was investigated, with a jobs/MW baseline used to understand the job potential of renewable energy according to various scenarios.

Turkana wind power HR advisory and employment services

Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) is a 310MW wind farm, the largest in Africa. It comprises 365 Vestas wind turbines, 850kW each, providing 15 -20% of Kenyan national demand when operational.

Grid connection is via a 400kv purpose-built double circuit 428km transmission line that will allow for further expansion of the national grid and the development of additional power generation projects.

The location is remote and entailed the upgrading of over 200km of secondary access roads and the construction of 100km of internal roadways. Vestas was responsible for a €300 million engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the supply and installation of the V52 turbines at LTWP.

The project was considered ‘high risk’ with funding being declined by the World Bank on concerns about the construction of the transmission line, the African Development Bank (AfDB) underwrote the transmission project with co-lenders being Standard Bank and Nedbank of South Africa.

The project was the largest single EPC contract ever to have been undertaken by Vestas at that time.

AltGen was engaged by Vestas in two phases: the first phase entailed leading the compilation of the construction team, and the second phase, initiated approximately 18 months later, involved recruitment and selection of the operations and maintenance staff.

Both phases encompassed full responsibility for recruitment and selection of all appropriate staff including developing job profiles, interviewing, selection matrix development, sourcing, screening, background checks, competency testing, compiling offers of employment, relocation, on-boarding and integration into the corporate environment.

The project required very close collaboration with both the Construction Project Manager prior to and during construction and the Service Manager in the hand-over phase into operations and maintenance.

The two main challenges encountered were:

  1. dealing with misalignment between a European OEM / EPC with limited emerging market exposure and local Kenyan expectations, and;
  2. the sourcing and selection of local resources in an extremely remote location in Marsabit County in far Northern Kenya, an area which borders Ethiopia to the North and which is populated predominantly by nomadic pastoralists.

The district is 70 000km in size, with the nearest town, Loiyangalani, pop. of approximately 1000, serving as the epicentre of service provision for the eastern Turkana area. Nevertheless, the project was successfully executed with all required resources being appointed in both Nairobi and on-site, and a significant number of the technicians being sourced either from the local community or being individuals originally from the area.

Engaging with corporate “as is” and “to be” states, including an investigation into general conditions of employment (allowances and benefits) and employee satisfaction. Part of this type of engagement may include a critique of current employer structures, recruitment, and HR engagement, as well as defining wordage in the employment discourse concurrent with the implementation of Employee Handbooks.

In these type of instances, AltGen may be retained, for a monthly fee, to manage fully outsourced HR in conditions of corporate adjustment. Examples may include where an outsourced employment strategy has not produced results and the employment function is internalized, or alternatively where internal employment is externalized (outsourced) for a variety of operational reasons.

AltGen’s longstanding relationship with Vestas has resulted in additional services to support the company on their project in Kenya, AltGen provided recruitment and employment services for 36 staff members.

Services included:

  • Recruitment and selection of the appropriate candidate
  • On-boarding of the candidate and contract establishment
  • Timekeeping and payroll processes
  • HR advisory
Priscilla-Gibson-Associate-Director-of-AltGen-Works-on-Lake-Turkana-Wind-Power-Project
Priscilla Gibson, Associate Director at AltGen fly's into LTWP to conduct HR Consulting Services.
Credit-Lake-Turkana-Wind-Power-Community-Engagements-in-Kenya
Community members in Lake Turkana.
Credit-Lake-Turkana-Wind-Power-Wind-turbines
Wind turbines at LTWP.
Construction works at Lake Turkana Wind Power plant

Assessment of skills needs and estimation of the job potential for the biogas industry in South Africa

This project entailed an investigation into the skills needs and an estimation of the job potential in the biogas industry in South Africa. The study found that as of April 2016 there were 1700 people directly employed in the biogas industry with around 38 projects in commercial operation with a number in the pipeline.

A series of interviews were held with owners, developers, EPC’s, O&M’s, OEM’s, technical specialists and industry associations and a detailed breakdown of the project value chain was undertaken, with skills needs, organograms and potential job creation being investigated at each stage, factoring project sizes and the duration of PPA’s.

Factors inhibiting the rollout of biogas were also dissected and a job creation model which projected jobs numbers that factored in the variables based on a conservative and optimistic project implementation was derived. The project was reduced to a PPT presentation and shared with the biogas platform and outcomes played a significant role in investment decisions taken by industry stakeholders.

Green mini-grid programme

The objective of the Green Mini-Grid (GMG) programme is the: “roll out of approximately 15 GMG projects that are sustainable and will provide 500 000 rural Kenyans with access to reliable green electricity for the first time”. To this end, the UK, through its Department for International Development (DFID), allocated £30m to support mini-grid project development and private investment in Kenya.

Agence Française de Développement (AFD) was selected as the implementing partner with a managing entity (IED of France) appointed to administer the investments grants and technical assistance facilities made available to support GMG market development. To provide internal support to AFD, a Supervisory Consultant was appointed to ensure effective day to day supervision and management of the programme, timely delivery of quality outputs, and the positive visibility of the programme, ensuring maximum positive impacts for all stakeholders. In late 2016 AltGen Kenya LTD was appointed to provide the Supervisory Consultant to AFD, a relationship that is ongoing and has resulted in effective collaboration with AFD that has challenged several claims put to the program, highlighted multiple risks and ensured an effective, honest and collaborative atmosphere of cooperation prevails between all stakeholders.

The GMG program has effectively delivered power to several communities and continues to roll out further projects. It is on track to deliver on its mandate.

Green-Mini-Grid-Programme-Kenya-Muslim-Janoowala-
GMG Facility in Lake Turkana, Kenys

Employment & staff sub-contracting

During 2016, through to 2020 AltGen has supported 4 clients with employment and sub-contracting services. The client ranged from a PV OEM, a Developer, Owner and Operator of Renewable Projects, to a Consulting Advisory as well as an international consultancy in the carbon tax advisory space.

Support Services included:

  • Recruitment and selection of the appropriate candidate
  • On-boarding of the candidate and contract establishment
  • Timekeeping, payroll, and contractor payments

Wind turbine service technician course verification

ENGAGEMENT 1: COURSE INTEGRITY:

A training centre, initiated in 2011, aimed specifically at providing training in renewable energy technologies. The primary offering is the Wind Turbine Service Technician course (WTST).

It was AltGen’s task to provide independent verification of the system, including evaluating the learner selection criteria, the reasons for the appointment of delivery partners, and including a summative assessment “of learning” to assess student skill acquisition, and a formative assessment “for learning” to collect detailed information that educators could use to improve learner instruction. Other evaluated elements included the learner materials, the workplace evaluation and logbook, the WTST implementation plan including a risk assessment, and a holistic project close-out on the three primary project components: learner selection criteria, the curriculum and assessment specification, and the learner results.

 

ENGAGEMENT 2: WIND TURBINE TECHNICIAN TRACER STUDY 

The formal engagement here was to “review the career development and professional progress of at least three groups of SARETEC wind energy technician training course graduates” over some time, to track their engagement with and absorption by the South African wind energy industry and thereby indirectly assess the success of both the initial training in Germany and the second and third WTST courses which were offered in South Africa. The study’s secondary objective was to assess students’ motivation for attending, career and professional development after completion, future expectations in terms of career growth, and current and evolving employment statistics of the graduates.

The engagement took place for 12 months, with entry and exit interviews conducted with all of the course participants as well as their supervisors. The outcome revealed a fascinating interplay between the recruitment process, the engagement of SARETEC with the OEM’s and the subsequent qualified success of the absorption of the graduates into the wind energy industry. It included a set of recommendations for SARETEC to ensure the successful placement of graduated technicians.

Priscilla Gibson, Associate Director of AltGen with SARETEC Technicians during induction
south african renewable energy technology centre logo