Keen to play its part in addressing the skills challenge, Segen, the UK’s largest solar and storage distributor, has made a significant investment in developing a new training academy, designed solely with this in mind, and set to deliver much more to the emerging installer community than simply skills training
We spoke with Steven Skinsley, Training Manager at Segen, to find out more about this exciting new facility:
“Our goal is to offer the best renewable training experience in the UK to help attract existing electrician and plumbers into the sector and support them through their journey to qualification as renewable energy installers.
“To ensure that the training environment best reflects what installers see in the real world, they have played a key part in getting us to this point. The main driving force behind the academy design has been the ground-up input from real world installers, expert support from our strategic partners and invaluable input and guidance from MCS.”
Q The new centre is a significant development – what led to its creation?
The bottleneck created by the current number of qualified installers is a critical challenge to delivery of the UK goal of 70GW installed solar capacity by 2035. As the UK’s largest solar and storage distributor, we felt we had a clear role to play and a responsibility to support existing installers into the sector.
That is why we have invested significantly into the academy development, as well as committing to significant subsidisation of the qualifications offered.
Our goal is to offer the best renewable training experience in the UK, to help attract existing electrician and plumbers to come into the sector and qualify as full renewable energy installers.
Q What has been your own journey into your current role as Training Centre Manager for Segen?
I began my career in the trade as an electrician, which opened numerous doors for me. The move into formal teaching was a natural one, after I spent some years managing teams of electricians and found a great deal of fulfilment in sharing my knowledge and helping others.
Following several formal teaching and assessment qualifications, I spent many years as a training officer/assessor before working my way up to become the Training Manager at Segen.
Q What does this role involve, and what will success look like for you?
The core role is all about engaging with individuals, and understanding their specific learning needs, while following the qualification curriculum to ensure a consistent quality of training delivery.
Therefore, success will be to combine a 100% pass rate with an engaging and memorable learning experience.
Q We understand you are placing a lot of importance on delivering a hands-on approach to training. Why is this such an important focus for you?
It is critical that we focus on a hands-on approach to provide new installers with the skills they need to succeed in today’s world of renewable energy installations.
Course candidates will be able to get their hands on a wide range of different renewable energy technology from market leading manufacturers. This ensure that candidates will graduate from our courses with the experience and knowledge to properly install, commission and service residential solar PV installations.
Our courses also include access to our mock roof section, where candidates learn how to work properly with elements such as roof hooks and mounting rails on various roof types.
Q What can you tell us about the specific course provision?
We will be offering a blend of accredited level 3 qualifications in Solar PV, Electrical Energy Storage Systems, EV charge points and Heat Pumps, as well as a range of additional courses that go beyond industry-standard qualifications, representing leading-edge sector skills.
The Segen Training Academy has been custom-built for delivering the courses in the best possible way: offering an outstanding hands-on practical training setup for a wide selection of leading technologies, as well as an excellent classroom learning environment.
Q We understand you are backing up the core skills training with value-added modules covering such aspects as finance, sales skills and running a business. Tell us more about how this approach is designed to assist the installers in all aspects of delivery in the sector.
One of the unique aspects of our academy will be our introduction of soft skills training. This allows newly qualified installers to gain the skills required to successfully embark on their journey towards operating their own solar installation company.
By offering skills outside of traditional installation qualifications, we can provide our course candidates with vital skills in finance and sales as well as how to successfully up-scale their renewables business.
These will be important value-added courses that will make Segen trained installers stand out from the rest.
Q If you could get one key message across to potential users of the new centre – what would you want to say?
Not only are the products massively exciting, but installing solar PV, battery storage and heat pumps into homes also makes a wonderful, and important, contribution to society. Of course they have a huge positive impact on the environment, but they also make a massive impact on people’s lives – helping them reduce their day-to-day cost burdens.
What can be more rewarding than knowing you are contributing to both the environment and society on an individual level like that?
Our job is to make that whole qualification journey as fun and memorable as possible. You won’t regret it – find out more now!
Image credit: Segen
