“Where can we find trained solar technicians and installers or invest in training for them?” 

With the explosion of rooftop solar playing a material role in the change of the South African energy mix, we have seen a number of people positioning themselves as installers as they seek to generate new revenue for their businesses. 

The recently released Draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) from the government suggests that load-shedding will continue to be with us [conservatively] until at least 2027. 

The South African economy will be unable to sustain 3 to 6 years of loadshedding and this will continue to be a driver of rooftop solar – which will in turn drive demand for skilled and qualified installers. 

This is one of the reasons we are excited about our partnership with Solana Energy and the Decusatio Impact Investment team, which will see over 200 installers trained in 2024.

Training opportunities for Solar Technicians in 2024

Recognising early that there was a demand for these skills, Solana Energy partnered with South32 in Richards Bay to develop a world-class training centre for Solar installers which trained nearly 100 people in 2023. 

This site has not only trained installers from the Richards Bay and Kwa-Zulu Natal regions but has also hosted youth from Gauteng and the Northern Cape and will host cohorts from Witbank and Mpumalanga this year. 

There are 20 courses planned for 2024 at the Solana Academy in 2024:

  • 7 x 4-5 week courses (20 pax)
  • 5 x Green Card training courses (20 pax) 
  • 8 x Green Card Assessments (8 pax) 

** Costs are available on request but dependent on the sizes of cohorts and other factors

SolarTraining

Integrate with your Youth Employment Service (YES) programme

A popular structure we saw in 2023, was organisations integrating solar into their B-BBEE strategies with the Youth Employment Service (YES) incentive. 

This was typically structured as a combination of training and then deployed into 12-month work experiences aimed at capacitating the solar sector. 

Incorporate Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) into developing solar skills

Solana Energy is a Level-1 B-BBEE ESD beneficiary and has partnered with a number of organisations that have deployed ESD funds to capacitate the solar sector through grant contributions. 

These grant contributions have not only been utilised to train new skills for the solar sector but also to give the youth practical experience working on projects where they can facilitate installations for schools, orphanages, and other organisations.

Recruit solar talent in 2024 

With over 200 solar technicians and installers likely be trained in 2024 through the Solana training academy, we are developing a strong pipeline of solar sector talent. 

With these jobs being in strong demand for the foreseeable future, we expect to have an extensive database of youth to capacitate the sector. 

 

Should you be looking for talent in this sector, please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss this in further detail.