In the company Linkener Renovables they have noticed that there is a lack of labor in the renewable energy sector and they have stated this. Specialized in the assembly and integral maintenance of photovoltaic installations, they have a network of 38 qualified installers distributed throughout the national territory, but they warn that more than half of those needed by this market are missing.
“In the Valencian Community, in principle, we could talk about the fact that 50% more qualified installers would be needed than there are currently to be able to cover self-consumption needs. A figure that can be increased to even 70% in the case of other communities”, says Javier Ormaechea, Linkener's director of operations.
The president of Avaesen, the association of renewable energy companies and other clean technologies of the Valencian Community, Marcos J. Lacruz, gives this percentage a number: "There are 2,500 people missing for the next two years and only to meet the demand we have At this time, I am not saying for the one that will be generated in the next five or six years," he explained to La Vanguardia. They calculate that in the next decade the sector may need up to 5,000 people.
The reason lies in the "hatching of self-consumption", explains Lacruz, who estimates the self-consumption facilities that were installed last year in the Valencian Community at 400 megawatts, "an outrage". In addition, he reminds him, it must be taken into account that there are also numerous projects for plants on the ground, which also triggers the needs of the labor market linked to the sector.
Faced with this scenario, companies in the sector are looking for employees "wherever they come from", but Lacruz asks to establish a work plan with the Valencian Employment Service, Labora, to promote the recycling of professionals. "When we see, for example, that at Ford there are 1,000 employees who can go to the street, we would like them to have an opportunity to retrain in an industry that is no longer of the future, but of the present. We are willing to update them," he assumes the manager of Avaesen.
In this sense, the Vocational Training classrooms of the Valencian Community have this course with 2,944 students training in one of the related degrees, such as the Intermediate Degree in electrical and automatic installations; the Superior Degree of solar and thermal energy efficiency and the Superior Degree of renewable energies.
But from the Ministry of Education they explain that in the case of the higher degrees of Energy Efficiency and Thermal Solar Energy, despite the fact that it has a high labor insertion and there is a lot of demand from the business sector, the enrolled students are "well below" the offer of places because it is a degree of recent implantation and therefore it is "very unknown". However, the upper degree in Renewable Energies is more in demand, 64% of the places are covered, and the average degree in Electrical and Automatic Installations is covered by 70%.
One of the objectives of the Ministry directed by Raquel Tamarit is to provide a training response to key sectors such as renewable energies and the sustainable economy, "very important to promote the transformation of the Valencian productive fabric", they recall.
For this reason, the offer in these specific degrees will increase despite the fact that student demand is still not high and the next academic year 2023-2024 there will be 105 more places by implementing two more intermediate degree titles in Electrical and Automatic Installations, one in the IES Bernat Guinovart de Algemesí and another at IES Las Lagunas de Torrevieja (the latter in blended mode to reach more population), as well as a higher degree of Renewable Energies at IES Cayetano Sempere de Elx.
