Enhancing the energy sector: capacity building for professionals

One of the Transforming Energy Access Learning Partnership’s (TEA-LP) primary focus areas is capacity building for professionals working in the energy and off-grid energy sectors in our target regions, including Africa, South Asia, and the Indo-Pacific. TEA-LP continues to strive towards building a highly skilled and resilient energy sector workforce through several projects targeted at professionals.

TEA-LP developed a course titled Future Female Leaders in Energy, a CPD course aimed at women working in the energy and off-grid energy sectors that was developed in collaboration with the African Management Institute. The course aims to address the gender gap that exists in the energy sector, and to empower women in their careers. The course equips the women with high-level technical knowledge of the energy sector, offering a coherent understanding of how the energy sector works as a system with multiple disciplines and fields interacting such that it operates effectively and efficiently. Furthermore, the course teaches the women valuable leadership and management skills to adequately prepare them for more senior roles as their career progresses. Some of the key areas focused on are leadership on a personal, team, and organisational level, communication, project management, financial management, and risk management. The course runs over 6 months and is offered in an asynchronous, virtual environment, allowing women from any country to enrol in the course, and allowing them to engage with the course content when it best fits their busy schedules and when they are feeling most productive and focused, thereby improving the efficiency of the learning journey. TEA-LP is excited to welcome the 7^th and 8^th cohorts to the programme, who will start on the 23^rd of July 2024. We would also like to congratulate the first three cohorts who have successfully graduated from the programme, and wish cohorts 4, 5, and 6 all the best as they close in on their graduation. Each cohort consists of roughly 30 women, and TEA-LP has set the target to see through at least 300 graduates.

TEA-LP was also responsible for designing, delivering, and developing two CPD courses, both of which are accredited by the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) and offer successful graduates CPD credits to progress their professional careers. Like Future Females, these CPD courses were designed to accommodate the modern, full-time working employee, by creating an asynchronous, virtual course that participants could engage with when it would fit into their schedule and suited them best. The first course, titled Integrated Energy Systems (IES), has seen two successful cohorts graduate, with a third cohort that began on 15 July 2024. The course consists of four modules: Whole Energy Systems Thinking, Energy Security, Energy Efficiency, and Sustainability. The course aims to give participants a deeper understanding of energy systems and some of the crucial factors that can contribute to its successful functioning. IES was developed in collaboration with industry leading experts from around the world, helping to strengthen our network while developing good working relationships with our partners. We would like to thank Dr Karim Choukri, Oghosa Erhahon, Dr Fenwicks Musonye, and Fana Fili Nurhussien for their dedicated work and commitment to excellence.

The second CPD course, titled Integrated Data Energy Analytics (IDEA), focuses on enhancing the impact that data analytics can have on the energy sector. The course consists of 8 modules: Introduction to Demand Assessment and Forecasting, Data Collection and Reprocessing for Demand Forecasting, Energy Consumer Behaviour Analysis, Forecasting Techniques, Data Analytics for Operational Performance Evaluation, Data-Driven Decision Making, Future Trends and Advanced Topics, and Ethical and Privacy Considerations. Each module is delivered over one week and requires roughly 10 hours to work through, totalling 80 hours upon completion. IDEA aims to impart data analytic competencies to graduates and working professionals to enable them to provide innovative, evidence-based decisions in the energy sector, guided by data-driven solutions. This can help to address challenges in the supply, demand, prediction, and operation of diverse energy systems, while simultaneously evaluation and applying socio-economic policies in both current and hypothetical energy scenarios in an ethical manner. The first cohort of IDEA is set to start on Monday 19 August, and we look forward to welcoming the first lot of participants.