Future Skills 2011

Skills underpin everything within our industry. The design, construction, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning of every oil rig, refinery and fossil-fuelled or nuclear power plant, or every wind turbine, for example, is reliant on the skills, knowledge and collaboration of a wide group of stakeholders, both directly and indirectly.

The day-to-day running of the transfer of this energy, both through pipes or on LNG ships, or through the wires of our electricity network, relies on people that have the difficult task of not only ‘keeping the lights on’, but also planning for a radically different energy future. At the demand side, individuals are constantly working on how to use this energy more effectively. Skills, then, are what we should be investing in when looking at the future of energy.

This is the third edition of the Energy Institute’s (EI) annual supplement: Future skills. Sincethe last edition, the UK government has published its consultation on low carbon skills. This year, Charles Hendry MP, Minister of State for Energy, gives an overview of current government initiatives in the low carbon area on page 7.

The government plans that a large proportion of low carbon energy will come from offshore wind. The move to step-up the rate of offshore turbine installation will need expertise to do so, and the UK offshore oil and gas industry might just be the place to look – see page 11. Nuclear energy is also part of the government’s low carbon agenda. Here we look at post-Fukishima impacts on nuclear new build from Cogent (page 9).

Elsewhere, the supplement focuses on the work that the EI is doing to support the energy workforce, now and in the future.

Last, the supplement can act as a reference guide for members looking to undertake further study – a list of energy-related university courses and training bodies can be found on pages 12–20.

Skills underpin everything in the energy industry and the EI is well placed to support energy employees, aid professional development and provide knowledge to the industry.