Northern Lights College students learn about wind energy
“There are going to be more wind farms, so it should be a good job to be getting into now, lots of long term growth.”
Students at the Dawson Creek campus of Northern Lights College (NLC) are hard at work learning about their future careers – and, perhaps, the future of energy in B.C.
“We anticipate there are going to be a whole lot more wind parks in northeastern B.C.,” explained NLC Dean Howard Mayer as to why the college began the wind turbine maintenance technician certificate program.
“There are plans for a whole lot more wind parks, so we could see a possibility of over 1,000 turbines around Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and the Tumbler Ridge area. We realize that we need to start to train technicians to do the maintenance on this equipment, and the best way to do it is to teach them right on the machine.”
In a corner of the college’s massive airplane hangar, students were busy disassembling and reassembling a 150-kilowatt wind turbine. The machine, strong enough to power 50 homes, was operating at a wind park in Denmark before being shipped to NLC.
It’s the exact same build as the wind turbines at the Dokie Wind Park near Chetwynd, except smaller. Those are three megawatts – too large to fit in the NLC hangar. The students are also working on a 30-kilowatt machine, and Mayer plans to bring in a 300-kilowatt turbine, so the students will have experience on a range of sizes.
The certificate program has four components, all related to wind turbines: electrical, Millwright, BZEE and safety. Students who complete the program will have Level 1 certifications in all four of those components.
BZEE, for those not in the know, is an acronym for four German words: Bildungszentrum für erneuerbare Energien. BZEE is the European standard for wind turbine maintenance technicians worldwide.
Student Michael Kallevik is glad the NLC program offers BZEE certification.
“There are going to be more wind farms, so it should be a good job to be getting into now, lots of long term growth,” he said. “We’re getting the training for the European standard, and that opens up that whole market for me to be able to work pretty much anywhere in the world.”
