Enel Green Power : EGP's Solar Schools in Chile and South Africa

Learning how to work with the sun. This is the aim of the programme of two unique schools that Enel Green Power has conceived and launched in Chile and South Africa to offer professional training to young people in these two countries, meeting the needs of the local labour markets.

EGP's Green Academy in South Africa - as reported by The Guardian online in a recent article -teaches how to install solar PV panels, how to become sellers to local customers and to open small sector businesses for the retail market. The school, which offers a five-year programme, opened its doors in June 2014, offering free intensive courses, a simple idea that represents an innovative training opportunity combining business and social development.

In the country where EGP has taken root, with the commissioning of its first solar PV plant in May 2014, securing an additional 938MW of solar and wind power in a series of supply contract tender contests, a gradual decline of technical and handicraft jobs and skills has been witnessed for some time now. These courses, which are conducted in partnership with the Master Artisan Academy South Africa, are aimed at training local specialist manpower, and also have to potential of assessing the development potential of the currently near non-existent domestic PV market.

In Chile the technical training programme in the field of solar PV technology trains young people from the town of Taltal, in the province of Antofagasta, in the north of the Latin American country. Twelve mostly 20-year old secondary school graduates were the first to participate in the training programme, which is aimed at creating local employment opportunities in the field of specialist solar PV technology, both for homes and industries.

The 'Solar School' in Chile has been organised by EGP's sustainability department together with the company's solar PV engineering unit in the Latin American country. The course was created with the cooperation and support of the municipality of Taltal and Soltec, a global company specialising in solar plant components, which provides EGP with solar tracking systems.

The training programme involves five days of classroom lessons, a visit to a functioning plant and a month at a plant under construction gaining practical experience and building on theoretical knowledge. In fact, the course is aimed at offering young people basic expertise in all the various applications of solar technology, granting them wide-ranging skills, including safety rules and environmental protection, principles of corporate management and information useful to creating solutions for small and medium sized companies.