The renewable energy sector is facing a looming crisis due to a shortage of workers, a fact we’ve been aware of for some time. The BalticWind.EU newsroom inbox is filled with impressive announcements of new job openings created by the latest investments. And that’s great. However, on the flip side, there’s a lack of information about specific solutions to the worker shortage.
Solutions are being discussed. It’s certainly worth hoping that some processes can be automated. And perhaps this means the European wind sector won’t need 100,000 new workers by 2030, but only 50,000. But there are still more question marks than solutions. For example, efforts to reskill and transition workers from the coal mining sector are being made by companies in the wind industry, the photovoltaic sector, and even those involved in the extraction of raw minerals, as well as, interestingly, the automotive sector. This indicates how intense the competition will be for these qualified workers in the coming years.
The situation is at least challenging.
For this reason, the recent statement by Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, that children should not learn programming because the profession of programmer will soon become obsolete due to AI, should be welcomed with great enthusiasm. What does this mean for the wind energy industry? If indeed, in the coming years, programmers are no longer needed, it’s worth considering retraining them for positions in the wind sector. According to the information I’ve been able to find, there are over 6 million software developers in Europe. So, there’s definitely a pool of talent to draw from with offers.
You can watch the full interview with Jensen Huang during the World Governments Summit in Dubai here. The entire interview is very interesting and eye-opening but the moment when he speaks about AI killing the software programming industry starts at 18:15.
