Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

The Renewable Energy Installers Academy is a joint initiative between Sustainable Energy Ireland and Action Renewables in Northern Ireland. Since late 2005, the two agencies have developed and delivered a cross-Border programme of renewable energy installer training. The programme was granted funding assistance under the INTERREG IIIA programme. It has been developed to address the dearth of trained installers and designers which was identified as a critical barrier to the sustained development of a renewable energy technology market.

The overall objective of the initiative is to provide training, accreditation, quality inspection and registration for installers of renewable technologies. This will underpin the development of the market for renewable energy technologies on an all-island basis. To date, the academy has been responsible for the development and specification of installer training courses in each of the main heating technologies — biomass, solar and heat pumps. The academy contracted European expertise to provide advice to the project in developing and delivering the training laboratories and training materials.

The first phase of the project involved a partnership with education centres within the INTERREG region to deliver training to installers and designers. The academy has also set down minimum standards for training providers in terms of facilities, materials and staff qualifications for delivery of approved training.

Following the success of phase one, the academy's accredited training programme is currently being rolled out beyond the INTERREG region. The national training agency, FÁS, is now offering training courses in all of the renewable heating technologies. Two fully equipped training laboratories, to the academy's specification and standard, have been developed as a joint initiative of SEI and FÁS. The Dublin training facility is now fully operational and a facility in Cork will be providing training by the end of this month.

Training materials and laboratory specifications will shortly be made available to all accredited training providers equipped with training facilities which meet the REIA standards.

Sustainable Energy Ireland and Action Renewables continue to work closely together on this important cross-Border project which has already paid dividends North and South. They have already undertaken joint cross-Border industry consultation with a view to further developing the academy model. The sustained expansion of the numbers of fully trained renewable technology installers is a key component of the quality assurance and customer service standards of the greener homes scheme.

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