EEEGR, through our Skills for Energy initiative, were pleased to be invited to take part in a Wind Skills Day at East Coast College in Lowestoft. Working with Rachel Bunn, Director – Commercial, Projects and Community and STEM Lead, alongside representation from ORE Catapult and Hexis Training, students were led through several workshops related to the offshore wind industry.
Starting with ORE Catapult, Imogen Stevenson talked students through several aspects of wind farm construction and maintenance, including the importance of safety and reliability in all operational aspects, as well as the need to conserve and extend marine habitats to improve biodiversity. Students were then asked to come up with a two-minute pitch for an idea in one of the fields, which they would then be scored on using several criteria, including safety of the idea, cost and speed of implementation. All the students performed very well, especially considering the limited time to prepare and the lack of prior knowledge!
They then moved on to EEEGR’s workshop which was led by our newest member of staff, Suzanne Allen, who joined earlier in the week as our new Skills for Energy Manager. Suzanne’s background as a physics teacher stood her in good stead as she talked the students through the process in which a turbine generates electricity, before moving on to a practical demonstration. For this, we used turbine kits from Offshore Wind 4 Kids, which allowed the students to put together their own turbine and then test it, improving things such as the pitch of the blades and the distance from the fan.
Finally, the students were given an excellent demonstration of the skills and techniques needed for working at height by the team at Hexis Training. Using East Coast College’s facilities, they were shown the various safety systems which are used by turbine engineers when working offshore, as well as how they work together to ensure workers always have redundancy in case of a failure or accident. The demonstration finished with an example of how someone who had fallen and possibly been knocked unconscious could be rescued while also keeping the rescuer safe at all times.
Overall, it was a brilliant opportunity to show both the variety of jobs available in the Offshore Wind sector, as well as how the students present might be able to get in involved in the future.
