April 8, 2010 — The GridWise Alliance is thrilled about the Department of Energy’s announcement to award 54 projects with $100 million in Recovery Act funds for smart grid workforce training programs.
These winners, across a multitude of states, represent collaborative efforts by utilities, universities, technical schools and manufacturers to educate craft employees as well as engineers.
The program should pave an exciting pathway for high school students who choose to work in the smart grid ecosystem.
These smart grid training programs will equip our utility workforce with training building blocks and best practices for additional skills in information and communication technologies, making those key knowledge connections to integrate digital devices into the mechanical electric grid.
The Alliance believes workforce education is a critical issue in implementing smart grid. We have our own Education and Workforce Work Group to address some of these issues and look forward to cooperating with these award winners to ensure that our public policy reflects the need to train and educate our utility workforce around smart grid.
