Offshore Wind Round 3: On your marks… Get set…

The allocation of the Crown Estate’s Round 3 zones is nearly upon us.

After what seems like a life-time of anticipation, the commercial negotiations are now going on between the Crown Estate and the wind energy consortiums, to finalise the allocation of offshore zones in Round 3 of the UK’s offshore development. I have spoken to a number of contacts in the industry this week, who confirmed that things are very close to kicking off. Now is the time to fasten your seatbelts, we are about to get very busy!

Massive demand for Development Skills.

Everyone to whom I speak acknowledges the fact that, should they be successful in securing a link in the supply chain towards delivering a new round of offshore wind, they will need to build their teams accordingly to make sure that they can deliver upon their commitments. From EIA specialists, to planning and consents analysts, and technical due diligence engineers, there is all of a sudden going to be a massive demand for talented individuals who can help to turn an allocated area of the sea into a massive power generating asset.

I was speaking to a specialist in Environmental Impact Assessments for Offshore Wind farms yesterday. He has been involved since Round 1 of offshore developments, and is known as one of the few real experts and heavy hitters in that arena. He is already very busy, and is anticipating his work load only to increase as time develops. Immediately the best of the best in this industry, those that have lived and breathed offshore wind already, are going to be seriously in demand.

How will you attract the best?

In a question of weeks and months, there are going to be up to 9 consortiums suddenly competing to secure the best teams in a short period of time. All of these groups of companies currently have key players already on board, but the development of a multi-MW wind farm demands significant resource and expertise. Employers, have you thought about how you are going to attract further players to your team? I’ve spoken to several people in the last few months who have claimed “we know who we want to hire already”, but have you considered that other people want to hire the same experts?

How will you create and implement a hiring strategy which allows you to identify quickly and efficiently the right people for your company, and then ensures that you are able to attract them without going through unnecessary to-ing or fro-ing, and most importantly without entering into a bidding frenzy?

How will you retain the best?

Have you also considered that other companies out there may have identified members of your existing team as the people they want to hire? How will you ensure that you retain your key players? Retention means ensuring that they are 100% comfortable where they are, and will not start to entertain your competitors’ flirtations of promotion, better benefits, more money, or increased responsibility?

Head-hunters are going to be all over this space. And whilst some of us do so with discretion, and with the best interests of all parties at heart (i.e. we have more values and ambition than just to make a quick buck), I warn you now that there are many who don’t.

You need to make sure that you have a strategy in place to hire the right people, and to retain the right people.

If you would like to discuss how you are going about this, please don’t hesitate to give me a call on 0845 241 4810 or email clare.buxton@ecosearchglobal.com.

By Clare Buxton

Wind Energy Sector Lead, EcoSearch

Follow @CEBUX on Twitter

Product Engineering in Renewables and CleanTech

This week Debby Lloyd has been immersed in engineering and product development in the renewables industry. Here are some of her thoughts...

Image http://wordle.net

There are some organisations globally renowned for their engineering R&D capabilities – some already have provenance in areas of "cleantech" as it’s moved into mainstream product development. Selected organisations have been involved in some of the most technically challenging high profile projects in the world with leading manufacturing organisations.

I recently spent a whole day at one such organisation at a new R&D engineering facility specifically built for the Cleantech sector. Imagine the scenario of being able to take your pick from more than a 1,000 engineers around the world with deep engineering expertise across all disciplines (structural, mechanical, electronics, controls, manufacturing etc) - marshalling and deploying them into the engineering challenges and opportunities presented by the renewable energy sectors.

When I look at who is providing similar services in terms of engineering consultancy for renewable energy product development I fear some will always be constrained in their development and offerings by their capitalisation and size. I also think there’s a tendency to be very "one dimensional" in their thinking. There are organisations in existence that are well versed to working and collaborating with leading OEMs across "same industry" sectors. As a result they emerge as real "centres of excellence" and become the industry "go to". This can be replicated for renewables – especially wind and tidal. So it’s encouraging to see renowned engineering organisations move into renewables and bring with them their alternative working practices that could benefit Wind Turbine Manufacturers and the wider cleantech community. The difficulty is they need credible renewables individuals to lead them into this space who are, of course, in short supply – and where we come in!

Some of these organisations have the capabilities to go far deeper into practical product development, testing and onwards to manufacturing issues rather than traditional "paper focused" consulting firms.

My personal perception (and feel free to challenge me on this) of R&D in the renewable energy sector is that it sometimes appears very "insular" and there is real reluctance to "go outside" for deeper expertise and alternative thinking which can reside in for example Aerospace, Defence & Automotive sectors. The need to protect IP is another reason. All these issues are born in part from the necessity of having grown from grass roots beginnings where self sufficiency is key for a variety of reasons – cost being a big one.

However maybe now is the time for different thinking – and options. There are engineering organisations steeped in dealing with such issues that can pull on years of engineering history and OEM collaboration from other vertical market sectors. These organisations bring new perspectives and techniques to the renewables sector that can really drive product innovation forward.

We’re working with some of them, its very exciting to watch what they can bring to the party.

Entering the renewable energy market – transferring skills and experience into the industry

Today Steven Rogers will be looking at the industry verticals that may offer Renewable Energy companies the skill sets they seek.

~*~*~

Securing employment in the renewable energy market is hard to beat as a profession: engineers love the technology, investors receive fantastic returns from socially responsible investments, developers cannot get projects off the ground quickly enough and carbon, in its many guises, is set to be the most traded commodity in the city.

The industry is also being driven forcefully forward by a number of mechanisms from government push to consumer pull, stakeholder demands and competitive pressure. Our government has layers of legislation in place to force and reward the expansion of this industry e.g. the Carbon Reduction Commitment (Carbon Trust) and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). 60% of end consumers state that they are more likely to buy a product or a service with a low carbon footprint. There is pressure from company stakeholders for companies to disclose their financial risk to climate change and up to 40% of CEOs perceive global warming to be a threat to business growth (Financial Express).

This dot.com style boom (dot.green is our pet name for it) has a number of upshots. The one I will focus on here is the human capital challenge – how do we increase the size of our teams quickly enough to meet this growth from such a limited talent pool?

There is further good news for our industry - there are more than enough people raising their hands to join these companies! We do have a problem though… Many of the people are highly skilled and highly experienced, but their expertise lies in other industries. This brings me to what I hold to be the answer - transferable skills.

Engineering in the renewable energy industry is a good example of my point. Many engineering companies I speak with would like to hire systems design engineers with x years experience in designing integrated, on-grid, renewable energy systems. These people do exist, but they are rare, typically happy where they are and well tied into their current employer. There is often little reason for them to move.

How then, do you grow your design team?

Do you hire untested personnel and train in-house? Can you get post-graduates in to help with a project which, in turn, assists them with their thesis? Ultimately, do you let the problem become a bottle-neck for your business’ growth?

No, you capitalise of the wealth of experienced people wanting to get into the industry but to whom the door is currently closed. But, which industries provide transferable skills?

From my experience working with electrical design engineers in the building services environment, their skills can be easily advanced to incorporate micro-renewable energy technologies, plus the time needed to do so is minimal. Let’s benefit from this volume of experience, provide training on specific products and grow our businesses.

A second industry example is the automotive industry. I recently recruited an individual straight of out a car manufacturer. There he was a lead mechanical design engineer working with CAD. A department focusing on renewable energy now has him joining their design team, with the aim of promoting him quickly to lead a design team.

There are other industries too - what options do engineers in the aerospace industry offer? We also have our well established ‘big brother’, Oil and Gas, where can we benefit from their experience?

I believe that we must seriously consider the option of recruiting from parallel industries because of the required growth speed within our industry. I think this can be achieved through two main avenues; firstly companies need to be more open minded about transferable skills into the industry and secondly individuals wanting to charge industry verticals also need to demonstrate their commitment to do so. This could be demonstrated through further education or becoming involved with technologies on a local level. Courses that we have success stories from include the Centre of Alternative Technology (CAT) and Loughborough (Loughborough) but there are many more superb courses available.

Stating that you are a keen recycler is not enough!

In my next blog post I will look more specifically at how a change of industry can be accomplished and how to identify transferable skills.

Don’t forget to subscribe by RSS so you never miss an EcoPost.