Today, with the support of the European Commission, stakeholders from the energy industry have established a Large-scale Skills Partnership (LSP) under the EU Pact for Skills initiative, to boost skills development in the energy sector across Europe. The move is a further step in the EU response to the shortage of skills linked to the clean energy transition. Despite the positive trend in the employment rate in this sector, according to the latest Competitiveness progress report on clean energy technologies, skills shortages may impact the growth of the clean energy sector. In 2023, nearly 4 in 5 SMEs are reporting that it is generally difficult for them to find workers with the right skills, and 25% of EU businesses involved in electrical equipment manufacturing faced shortages in the labour market.
As technical skills are in growing demand across the energy industry, firms are looking more and more into automation and digitalisation for competitive advantage especially in the more mature technologies, such as solar PV, wind and heat pumps. Building on the results of the Erasmus+ Blueprint Alliance, which focuses on skills for the digitalisation of the energy value chain, stakeholders from industry and research organisations will join forces to design, implement and disseminate specialised training programmes tackling the challenges of the digitalisation of the energy system.
This new large-scale skills partnership is an important action identified in the Action Plan for the Digitalisation of the Energy System, adopted in October 2022, to deliver on the Commission priorities of the European Green Deal and the digital transition – also in line with the REPowerEU plan. It will complement existing skills partnerships in the renewable energy industrial ecosystem regarding on- and offshore renewable energy, as well as the digital ecosystem skills partnership.
The LSP for the energy sector is the 20th large-scale partnership of the Pact for Skills. The Pact for Skills is one of the flagship initiatives under the European Skills Agenda. It aims to mobilise resources and incentivise all relevant partners to take concrete action to upskill and reskill the workforce in key industrial ecosystems. The Pact has so far provided training to more than 2 million workers, with 15,500 training programmes either updated or developed, and €160 million invested by Pact members into training programmes. This also contributes to the European Year of Skills and to the EU headline target that by 2030, at least 60% of all adults should participate in training every year.
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Details
- Publication date
- 14 December 2023
- Author
- Directorate-General for Energy