Navigating the skills challenge: Building a future-ready renewables workforce

• The Renewable Energy Skills Partnership has published a paper with 18 recommendations on how to address the skills challenge.

• The Partnership is calling on the Commission to prioritise renewable energy skills and workforce building in policymaking, and boost the visibility and attractiveness of technical, scientific, and engineering renewable careers, amongst other measures.

• The Partnership, comprised of renewable energy associations, clean technology installers, academia, and training centres, was launched in March 2023, to identify the skills measures needed to deliver our climate and energy goals. 

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Friday 10th May 2024): Following the recent closing of the European Year of Skills, the Renewable Energy Skills partnership has published a paper outlining 18 recommendations across 4 priority areas on how to address the skills gap.

Jonathan Bonadio, Senior Policy Advisor at SolarPower Europe (he/him); “We face a twofold challenge: we must ensure high-quality skills, while recruiting more workers for the renewables sector. These recommendations will guide EU policymakers in building the necessary skilled green workforce of tomorrow, already needed yesterday. Stakeholders like the Renewable Energy Skills Partnership stand ready to support.”

Nathalie Richet, Senior Master Programme Manager at EUREC (she/her): “Our Partnership gathers a variety of stakeholders willing to join forces to bridge the skills gap in the renewable energy sector. We welcome any interested participants willing to help us in this endeavour, especially as we now also aim to convey our recommendations at the national, regional and local levels.”

Oliver Jung, Secretary-General at GCP Europe (he/him): “During the European Year of Skills, we also collected best practices across Europe on successful training schemes, which we will start sharing and promoting. Implementation will remain a huge challenge though. Therefore, we call on the next Commission to declare a European Decade of Skills.” 

The Renewable Energy Skills Partnership is urgently calling on the European Commission to take decisive action with 18 policy recommendations, including amongst others:

1. Making workforce training in renewable energies an industrial priority.
2. Establishing an inclusive dialogue with social partners and industrial partnerships about skill-related policies.
3.  Organising national awareness-raising campaigns to attract more workers among students and jobseekers.
4. Supporting training programmes development in the fields of permitting, impact assessment, and technical regulations.

During European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) on 12 June, 14.30-16.00, the Renewable Energy Skills Partnership will organise a session, ‘The role of Net-Zero Academies in developing renewable energy skills.’ EUSEW is the biggest annual event dedicated to renewables and efficient energy use in Europe. More information on the Partnership’s session, and registration is available here.

About the Renewable Energy Skills Partnership

The Renewable Energy Skills Partnership brings together leaders from the entire spectrum of the renewable energy value chain. It ensures sustainable and systematic sectoral cooperation to have a well-trained and sufficient renewable energy workforce. This is a major factor of competitiveness for the renewable energy ecosystem, and a decisive condition for the manufacturing, deployment and management of renewable energy technologies needed to achieve the EU energy and climate objectives. . The Partnership’s activities are coordinated by Solar Power Europe, EUREC and GCP Europe.

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