White House Offshore Wind Roundtable Boosts the Renewable Energy Industry

The White House held a first-ever Offshore Wind Roundtable in late March 2021 to boost the offshore renewable energy market and create jobs with goals of installing 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and to finalize reviews of at least 16 construction and operations plans by 2025.

This supports the projection of 14,300 jobs for the United States in the “Powering the Future Global Offshore Wind Workforce Outlook 2020-2024” report published by Global Wind Organisation (GWO) in partnership with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

“The Offshore Wind Roundtable shines a spotlight on the need for safety and technical training of a fast-growing workforce in the years ahead,” observes Wesley Witt, Chair of the GWO North America Committee and Head of Quality Management and Health, Safety and Environment for Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.

“While we are seeing the number of GWO training providers grow, we anticipate this will accelerate to meet the needs of the offshore wind industry,” he adds. “With the growth in numbers of GWO training providers, this also means the number of GWO certification bodies will increase as well.”

GWO is a non-profit group of wind turbine owners and wind turbine manufacturers, committed to the creation and adoption of standardized safety training and emergency procedures to strive for an injury free work environment across the wind turbine industry.

Independent training providers deliver GWO-certified training to technicians and students worldwide. There are currently nine GWO training standards, containing a total of 24 modules. For more information on GWO standards, visit this page.  

Training records are created when a GWO standard course is passed and completed by a person. These records are uploaded and stored in the GWO WINDA database, allowing workers to transfer their skills to new employers, reducing costs and eliminating retraining of basic skills.

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