GWO hits the headlines

GWO making headlines

A busy few months has resulted in Global Wind Organisation making frequent headlines in the renewable energy industry trade media.

In February, GWO announced the election of its new Chairman, Eloy Jáuregui, with the news picked up in a range of publications including ReCharge, ReNews and EnergyWatch. Several of these articles appeared on subscription-only publications so here’s our roundup…

Eloy’s election provided GWO with a great opportunity to explain its strategic focus to a wider audience. He told ReCharge: “The sector must have access to skilled technicians to meet demand, however a lack of standardisation meant people were often re-training in wind turbine basic safety and basic technical training amongst other skills, frequently duplicating knowledge they already had.”

Later in the month, our release of the first full year of WINDA data attracted a great deal of interest. ReNews reported how “over 44,000 technicians in 135 countries had received Global Wind Organisation Training” in 2017, and EnergyWatch also wrote about the “growing importance of safety training among employees in the wind industry.

“Suppliers of certified safety courses are busy,” said EnergyWatch in its report at the end of February, listing the top ten providers of GWO courses by volume in 2017 and again focusing on the global numbers published in the WINDA report.

Finally, GWO’s delegation at the American Wind Energy Association O&M and Safety Conference were supported by further coverage outlining the strategic benefits of globally standardized basic safety training.

“Assuming an average of one annual avoided training day per GWO certified training day, GWO certified technicians have potentially been available for an additional 120,000-plus days of work during 2017,” said CEO Jakob Lau Holst in ReCharge. “Add to this the value of a day's work, the cost and administrative savings of avoided duplication of training, the value of being able to source training closer to sites, and the cost saving coming from purchasing a standard product and a rough guestimate puts the value of industry collaboration on standardisation in the order of €200-300m ($244-366m)”.

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