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.

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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.
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Community members in Lake Turkana.
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Wind turbines at LTWP.
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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.

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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.

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GMG Facility in Lake Turkana, Kenya
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GMG Facility in Kenys
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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
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Review of HIV/aids related activities implemented as part of the independent power producers (IPPs) socio-economic development (SED) investment

As a part of its social compact commitment, the GIZ has mainstreamed HIV into its activities, and as such has a compliance obligation to produce “one good practice document on the HIV-related measures in the renewable energy sector”.

The report sought to be this good practice document. As background, a review was conducted of the HIV related socio-economic development initiatives implemented by the various IPP’s, with interviews and site visits being held with several of them, in order to gain a broader picture of what was being done to mainstream HIV/AIDS in RE in South Africa.

Local and international HIV/AIDS best practice was investigated and a local renewable energy-specific best-practice set of recommendations was collated. Comparisons were then drawn between the current HIV/AIDS practices in RE in South and benchmarked practices. The conclusion of the project was that HIV/AIDS initiatives in RE in South Africa vary widely in approach, method and meaning, and in a significant number of IPPs there is little or no HIV/AIDS engagement.

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Assessment of training and skills needs for the wind industry in south Africa

To underwrite an investment into establishing a RE training centre in South Africa, in 2012, the GIZ commissioned a study to determine the absolute numbers of various skills that the then-nascent wind energy industry would require.

The research was undertaken by a well-known international consulting firm that postulated a range of jobs numbers needed for the different phases of wind farm development, construction, and operations and maintenance. The numbers derived were encouraging and were part of the justification for a US$10 million investment into the South African Renewable Energy Centre, SARETEC.

However, there were flaws in the research, particularly around factors that were used as justification to inflate the jobs numbers related to “South African labour market inefficiencies” and that were not based on any factual evidence. In reality, the OEM’s went directly to the “ideal” number of technicians, comparable to the most efficient jobs/MW factors in Europe.

Further, the study did not anticipate that the OEM’s would do most of their own training. The number of turbine technicians predicted to be required by industry at the end of 2017, with an installed capacity of 2300MW, was 655. In reality, AltGen’s research found 215 technicians in the market, servicing 2021 MW, one-third of the predicted number.

This, combined with an uneven rollout of wind energy over the period 2016 – 2018, has meant that SARETEC has been unable to justify training further WTST’s.

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HR advisory

PHASE 1: RETRENCHMENT PROCESS ASSISTANCE

In the event of reductions being necessary, AltGen has on occasion engaged with renewable energy employers to narrow down on role descriptions and staff capabilities and skillsets and through a process of direct engagement that provided professional opinions on which staff have business-appropriate skills which are recommended for retention.

PHASE 2: CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT AND BENCHMARKING

In these instances, labour unrest may result in reduced productivity and continued challenges to conditions of employment and management structures.

A lack of understanding of general conditions of employment, corporate financial performance, and specific project constraints may be a partial cause. Where these misalignments have arisen, AltGen has embarked on a fully integrated process of reconciliation which includes managing employee expectations as well as holistically educating management on employee rights. Outputs may include sector-specific conditions of employment analysis and benchmarking.

IRP barriers in wind and support through wind energy training, skills and capacity development

The project entailed (1) the development of a detailed stakeholder matrix to identify key players in the South African wind energy industry, specifically in the field of training and skills development, (2) conducting an inclusive workshop that facilitated discussion and collaboration around identifying possible training and skills development interventions, and (3) ultimately providing a revised set of outputs and activities for the SAWEP2 programme in sufficient detail to form the basis of the development of new terms of references. When carrying this project, the South African wind energy industry had been on hiatus for over two years.

The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers (REIPP) had stalled, and much of the institutional support for and interest in wind-based technical RE training had been on the decline. The emphasis thus shifted toward implementing training in the socio-economic sphere, which on the investigation was revealed to be devoid of institutional support and engagement being limited to project-specific compliance-based reporting by lenders, project owners and independent SED service providers.

Ultimately AltGen recommended that no training take place until the framework conditions for SED specific training were addressed.

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