Serious game: SKILLS IN THE WIND ENERGY SECTOR Erasmus Project

Project Title

Serious game: SKILLS IN THE WIND ENERGY SECTOR

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Energy and resources; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

CONTEXT:
Current skills established for wind energy sector´s staff refer only to operational training in the installation and operation of the wind farms. However, there are no standardized training programs at European level. Due to the increasing mobility in this sector, standardized training contents at European level would facilitate the qualification of professionals and will facilitate the mobility of staff between countries. An online standardized training program would address this growing demand.
Serious games are a useful learning method to complement the practical training needs of the learners and efficient tool in the learning processes, allowing learners to make a self- assessment to their learning process.
SKILLWIND is a project funded by the Action “Strategic Partnerships” of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, specifically by the KA2: “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices” whose aim is to create a homogenous European training program in wind farms maintenance which includes a serious game to evaluate the knowledge acquired.
MAIN GOALS OF THE PROJECT:
• To standardise at European level the necessary skills to adequately qualify wind industry professionals, specially the capabilities of workers in operation and exploitation of wind farms.
• To develop an innovative training in the wind energy sector through the design and programming of a serious game, specifically aimed to solve the most critical aspects of the activities of maintenance, health and safety, thus creating a safe working environment.
• To promote the professional development of workers and the competitiveness of the industry.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS:
The consortium is composed of five European partners with an extensive experience in the vocational training of this sector:
• AEE (Spanish Wind Energy Association): Spain
• SGS TECNOS (Multinational Company expert in vocational training): Spain
• ANEV (Italian Wind Energy Association): Italy
• BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON (University): UK
• WindEurope: (European Association of Wind Energy) Belgium

ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT:

IO1: Report: WIND ENERGY SECTOR´s SKILLS.
In a first step, in order to evaluate the transverse skills needed to qualify the wind energy sector staff and normalize the training at European level it is necessary to analyze the skills that the wind energy job market is demanding in Europe, as well as the training offer.
A research has been done focusing in the European Market to analyze the wind industry sector and its prospective growth in the future years which could affect employment requiring a very high number of qualified personnel. This research has taken into account the needed skills and the current training offer in Europe. This report is available in the project website: https://skillwind.com/
IO2: WIND ENERGY SECTOR TRAINING
The consortium has developed a standardized training program for the Wind Energy sector staff. This program is available to anyone wishing to learn in the project website: https://skillwind.com/ and is composed by 6 modules plus another one of technical descriptions:
• Basic concepts
• Construction, transport, commissioning & assembling
• Predictive Maintenance
• Preventive Maintenance
• Corrective Maintenance
• Health and safety

IO3: SERIOUS GAME Trivial: SKILLWIND
The consortium has developed a learning tool which allow players to test their knowledge of the SKILLWIND training program through a “Serious Game”. This trivial is available for Android (for download at the project website) and iOS devices (through the Apple Store) in 4 languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish.

RESULTS AND IMPACT:

The main result of the project is the provision of an innovative training tool to the professionals of the wind energy sector.

The additional IMPACTS that the project has generated are:
• Impulse to the implementation of e_learning in the sector
• Promotion of vocational education activities
• Promotion of linguistic diversity in the sector (the serious game is in English, Spanish, Italian and French)
• Improving the competitiveness of the sector with the introduction of ICT
• Professionalization of workers in the sector
• Facilitate the international mobility of professionals among countries

LONG-TERM BENEFITS
The project will favor the standardization of training for professional qualification in the energy sector at European level.
Skillwind has the approval of GWO (Global Wind Organization), a non-profit organization composed by turbine manufacturers and owners of wind turbines. They are a renowned organization in training standards for wind energy, as they have set the “GWO Criteria for Training Providers”. They have been always updated of the development of Skillwind project as they work close with several partners of the project. They have disseminated the novelties of the project within their networks and even participated in the final event in Brussels.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 186816 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASOCIACION EMPRESARIAL EOLICA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• SGS TECNOS
• ASSOCIATION POUR LA PROMOTION DES ENERGIES RENOUVELABLES – APERE ASBL
• ANEV associazione nazionale energia del vento
• BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON
• WindEurope