New Technology Is Key to Recruiting New Power Workforce

With so many career options to choose from, what can the power generation industry do to draw young people into the fold? Well, if you visit a modern educational institution, you may find that technology and advanced simulators can make the profession seem pretty inviting.

It is an exciting time to be a part of the energy industry. New technology is being developed in almost every sector of the business. The coal industry is working on carbon capture and storage solutions, nuclear professionals are creating new Generation IV reactors, solar developments include things like photovoltaic windows for skyscrapers, and energy storage solutions continue to improve, with some experts predicting an explosion of grid-scale deployments as soon as this year (see “The Year Energy Storage Hit Its Stride” in the May issue of POWER, online at powermag.com).

There are a lot of job opportunities in the industry as well. Because such a large number of employees are eligible to retire in this decade, the Energy Providers Coalition for Education (EPCE) expects that 62% of employees in the energy industry will need to be replaced by 2020. For the most part, these jobs must be filled locally and can’t be outsourced overseas, which means personnel with the right training and education can pretty much punch their ticket to a well-paying job with excellent benefits. (For more on education and employment trends, see the sidebar.)

While the U.S. unemployment rate has been on a steady decline since October 2009, it still stood at 6.7% as of March 2014. People are looking for jobs; the problem is that most of the currently unemployed just aren’t qualified to fill the utility industry’s needs. They don’t have the necessary training for the positions.

Industry-Focused Education

“Across the United States, utility companies—every one of them—has a relationship with a community college or a university,” said Matt Sadinsky, CEO of Prequalified Ready Employees for Power International, a talent development and recruiting company for the energy industry. The connection benefits both partners. The utility gains a valuable future employee resource, because students of the institution will be trained to meet the needs of the company—assuming that the curriculum includes courses appropriate to utility work. The college or university placement office gets a potential hiring resource that is looking for its qualified graduates. It is definitely a win-win situation.

Otter Tail Power Co.’s Big Stone Plant (BSP) offers an example of one such successful partnership. (Disclosure: I am a former BSP employee.) BSP is a 475-MW coal-fired power plant in eastern South Dakota. In 2006, Plant Manager Jeff Endrizzi could see the writing on the wall. The plant, then staffed with 75 personnel, had dealt with very little employee turnover up to that point—averaging only one retirement every 18 months—but Endrizzi projected that the plant would see 51 employees head for the door between 2012 and 2025 based upon the ages of the staff at the time.

“I took a chart to Lake Area Technical Institute (LATI) in Watertown, S.D., in 2006 to explain our expected needs,” Endrizzi said. “LATI had established programs for electronics, robotics, welding, and machining, and we had hired several graduates in the past. However, our upcoming retirements were from the mechanical maintenance and operations departments, and no program at LATI, or any other technical institute in the area, trained candidates for these positions.”

Endrizzi met with Deb Shephard, the vice president of LATI at the time, to discuss possible program additions at the school. Although BSP’s needs alone weren’t great enough to support new programs, Endrizzi encouraged Shepard to visit with other facilities in the area to determine if there was a broader regional need. Those conversations led LATI to develop its energy technology program and, later, an energy operations program. BSP employees continue to serve in an advisory capacity for each of those programs, as well as for LATI’s welding and robotics programs.

“Our rural location can add to the challenges of attracting workers,” said Endrizzi. To counter that, Otter Tail provides scholarships for technical institute students in pertinent programs and works to maintain relationships with the students and instructors in those programs. “Those of us that live here understand and appreciate the benefits of small town life, but that isn’t enough at times,” Endrizzi added.

Online Resources

While utilities work with their local institutions, online learning resources have expanded greatly with the Internet. (See “Going the Distance: Online Courses for Power Industry Professionals” in the June 2012 issue or online at powermag.com.) EPCE was formed in 2000 as a nonprofit alliance of industry individuals, utilities, companies, associations, unions, and other organizations to work together to develop the most relevant and timely energy education programs.

Offered entirely online, EPCE’s educational programs have been developed by the industry, for the industry. EPCE does not offer courses itself; instead, it partners with colleges and universities that are among the best in the nation at providing education online. Classes are fully accredited and completely transferrable.

EPCE’s educational partners include Clemson University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Bismarck State College (BSC), Excelsior College, and VHS Collaborative. According to EPCE, studies have shown that students in online courses perform better than those learning the same material through face-to-face instruction, so this new educational model seems to be working.

A Long Track Record

Of course, online classes are not for everyone; some prefer the traditional approach. With its main campus in Bismarck, N.D., BSC has been training personnel to enter the energy industry for quite some time. In 1970, the school identified an industry need for electrical line workers, and it began a program to fill that niche. The program’s success led to the development of the first power plant technology program in the country, which the school began offering in 1976. The program expanded to include process plant technology in 1981.

The school has continued to expand its offerings, including providing online courses beginning in 2000, nuclear training in 2004, and maintenance offerings in 2007, which was also the year that the Department of Energy (DOE) designated BSC as the “National Power Plant Operations Technology and Education Center.” In 2008, the school began offering a bachelor’s degree program in energy management, and the $21 million National Energy Center of Excellence (NECE)—a 106,200-square-foot, state-of-the-art building that currently houses the college’s energy programs and some administrative offices—went into service (Figure 1).

1. The National Energy Center of Excellence. This four-story building—built on a hillside and shown here from the top of the hill—includes labs, classrooms, and administrative offices for Bismarck State College’s energy programs. Source: POWER/Aaron Larson

BSC boasts that it has trained thousands of energy employees in all U.S. states. In fact, there was at least one student from every state and Canada among the 1,359 credit-seeking energy program students in 2013. A handful of international learners were part of the enrollment as well.

Modern Facilities

More than two-thirds of the money for BSC’s NECE came by way of donations from businesses and individuals, combined with federal, state, and local funding, the largest single portion of which was $5 million from the DOE. In addition to funding the facility, the money has been used on some high-tech training equipment.

The labs at BSC include a control room simulator (Figure 2), which was paid for by Great River Energy (GRE) in exchange for use of the simulator to train and qualify its operators. The distributed control system for the simulator utilizes software identical to that used at GRE’s Coal Creek Station, a coal-fired power plant with twin 600-MW units. In addition to two on-campus simulators, BSC also has two online simulators that allow student access from anywhere in the country.

2. Control room simulator. The simulator is an excellent tool for training students on plant operation. It allows instructors to enter system anomalies, which require students to identify and respond to alarms and unusual plant conditions. Source: POWER/Aaron Larson

Other state-of-the-art labs include a truck-driving simulator that is used to prepare students to obtain their commercial driver’s license, which is required for line workers. The simulator provides a realistic semi-truck driving experience, requiring students to shift gears, maneuver around obstacles, and use mirrors in the same way they would when driving a real truck. The seat and steering wheel are mounted on a moving, vibrating platform that enhances the experience, while large screens display the environment being navigated. The school also owns a semi-truck and trailer for actual on-road training.

An operating thermal power plant with a natural gas–fired, water-tube boiler is another hands-on training tool for students at the college. Complete with a distributed control system, the boiler produces steam to operate a single-stage turbine and small generator. The plant utilizes all of the conventional equipment—deaerator, condenser, feed pumps, and the like—typically included in a utility-scale plant.

Physical pumps, motors, and valves with cutaway sections for easy viewing of internal components are another useful learning tool. In addition to these, BSC has modern training stations for process control systems, mechanical drive systems, electrical control modules, and hydraulic instrumentation components (Figure 3).

3. Lab training modules provide hands-on experiences. The electrical control and hydraulic instrumentation modules shown here are just a sample of the mockups used at BSC. Source: POWER/Aaron Larson

They Gotta Wear Shades

The future’s so bright for most of the power program students that they should probably be wearing welding helmets to cut the glare. Graduates of accredited educational programs catering to the power industry are finding high demand for their services. BSC reports that its placement rate has been in the high 90s for more than a decade and that seems unlikely to change anytime soon, based on the EPCE statistics.

The biggest challenge is finding candidates who are interested in working in a plant or industrial setting. Although the money is generally agreed to be good, many young people feel the jobs are dirty and monotonous. While impressive schools with shiny new toys may coax students in the doors, utilities will need to utilize new techniques to keep new employees engaged and interested.

For example, as a December 2013 report (“Power and Utilities Changing Workforce”) by PricewaterhouseCoopers noted: “Even state-of-the-art utilities, however, still need to be able to speak the language of today’s technology driven generation. And while some organizations have been experimenting with new digital technologies and e-learning approaches to attract and retain younger people, most still lack appropriate training skills and procedures. Training manuals in the form of three-inch ring binders and a classroom-based, instructor-led approach simply may not be attractive to a digital generation that wants to learn largely online and at its own pace.” ■

— Aaron Larson is a POWER associate editor (@AaronL_Power, @POWERmagazine).