Endesa improves the employability of 527 people in rural environments with training in renewable energies

• Renewable energy training has been one of the pillars of the Creating Shared Value (CSV) plans implemented by Endesa through its renewable affiliate, Enel Green Power Spain, in the construction  of the solar and wind farms awarded in 2017 in a government auction.
• Out of the participants on the solar panel assembler courses held in 2018 and 2019, 210 people, almost 60%, were hired for the process of constructing the Endesa farms.

A total of 527 people, residents of areas in which Endesa (through its renewable energy division, Enel Green Power Spain) has built and connected to the grid 879 MW of renewable capacity, have received training in both solar and wind power.  The 10 courses on the operation of renewable facilities and the 4 courses for panel assemblers are contributing to improving employability in an emerging sector. These are municipalities in Andalusia, Aragon, Castilla León, Extremadura, Murcia and Galicia, many of them in 'empty Spain', that have seen the door open to development and the recovery of economic activity.

Of those attending the solar panel assembler courses held in 2018 and 2019, 210 participated directly in the construction phase of projects that are now operational and have been connected to the network since the end of 2019. This represents an employment rate of 58% of the people trained.

In addition to the construction work and job creation that these wind and solar projects have brought, the development model followed by Endesa included actions to create social value for the areas in which they are located: the so-called CSV (Creating Shared Value) model, costing over 2.2 million euros. The initiatives range from energy efficiency measures in the municipality (energy audits, efficient lighting and installing photovoltaic panels on social buildings) to signs for hiking and cycling routes. In addition, training in renewable energies for the people in the municipalities has been one of the priorities.

In total, there have been 14 training courses. Specifically:

• 10 courses in the operation and maintenance of wind and solar plants, taught to 166 people between April and November 2019. Of the attendees, 37, or 22%, were unemployed.
• 4 courses for solar panel assemblers, taught to 361 people, between June and November 2018. All the attendees were unemployed and the employment rate in the construction of the EGPE farms was 58%.

Sustainable construction

Also, sustainable engineering criteria were applied to the construction process. Indeed, two of the actions (the installation of isolated photovoltaic equipment for the electrical consumption of the camps during the construction phase which, once completed, will be donated to the local population for public use; and the use on some of the farms of electric vehicles by those responsible for the construction) were included as sustainable engineering actions in the 2018 Climate Projects of the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO).

This renewable capacity is in line with Endesa's strategy of decarbonising its generation mix by 2050. To achieve this, the first milestone of the latest Strategic Plan (2019-2022) will be to reach 10.2 GW of renewable installed capacity by 2022, compared with the 7.4 GW estimated for the end of 2019, with a total investment of about €3.8 billion.

With the entry into production of this new 879 MW of capacity awarded in government auctions, Endesa currently manages, through EGPE, more than 7,438 MW of renewable capacity in Spain. Of this figure, 4,701 MW come from conventional hydraulic generation and the rest, 2,737 MW, come from wind (2,292 MW), solar (352 MW), mini-hydro (79 MW) and other renewable energy sources (14 MW).

Enel Green Power, the global renewable energy business line of the Enel Group, to which Endesa belongs, is dedicated to the development and operation of renewables worldwide, with a presence in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Enel Green Power is a global leader in the green energy sector with a managed capacity of about 46 GW in a generation combination that includes wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric energy and is at the forefront of the integration of innovative technologies in renewable energy power plants.