NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 8 – Huawei has launched a talent development programme that aims to equip practitioners and students at tertiary institutions with technical skills and knowledge in the digital power space.
The programme, run by Huawei’s renewable energy arm Huawei Digital Power, targets 1,000 practitioner and tertiary students in the seven countries that it will be rolled out among them Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
It will offer hands-on operations, on-site practice opportunities, and a training camp in addition to theoretical knowledge to ensure all the participants will get the certification that will enable them to take part in the continent’s solar space.
This will help increase the rate of recruitment and retainment of highly skilled technical personnel, strengthen the continuous industry certification and promote the use and transfer of locally available technology skills.
“The challenge is that a company interested in the renewables sector would need to hire the necessary skills in year one and provide product-specific, on-the-job training for the first two years to ensure they are ready for a project in year three – and in most cases, this isn’t feasible. The ability to design and deliver a wind or solar plant is usually based on experience, which is difficult to attain when sectors and technologies are still relatively new,” said Xia Hesheng, President of Huawei Southern Africa Digital Power Business.
Hesheng noted that the result is expecting growth in the sector yet people don’t have the skills to support that growth.
The programme is set to solve the challenge most solar companies face where new employees lack experience, training and technical skills needed to perform the majority of the jobs that come up in the sector, more so with the increase of utility-scale projects as many countries are gearing towards increasing the use of solar and other renewable sources of energy.
The training comes at a time the continent is shifting towards renewable sources of energy to achieve its development goals which is also a response to the climatic change the continent faces.
Africa has great potential for renewable sources of energy as it has more than 40 per cent of the world’s solar energy but lacks enough skills to tap and unlock this great potential.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Sub-Sahara Africa’s renewable energy capacity has grown to 3 per cent of the total installed capacity as the continent has a huge demand of approximately 100,000 technicians yearly yet less than 20,000 are currently employed in the sector.
