Training providers offered head start by piloting new standards before release

GWO’s Control of Hazardous Energies (COHE) Training Standard and two additional modules of the Lift Training Standard have today been published in draft, to allow for an extended quality control and testing period.

The training standards’ official launch has been postponed until late 2021 to accommodate a rigorous pilot testing programme at GWO certified training centres in Europe, the United States and China.

Now, GWO is requesting that training providers support the launches by offering to pilot the courses prior to their release. Planning and conducting the pilot training (and afterwards receiving both professional and pedagogical feedback from GWO working groups) will give training providers a head start on the market by offering GWO trainings on CoHE or lift to a global audience.

Jakob Bjørn Nielsen, Director of Training & Operations at GWO, explained:

“These are two of the most complex and ambitious training standards our members have ever requested for the industry. In the case of both the COHE standard and the Lift modules, we have worked hard to ensure the training will be applicable across borders while delivering the benefits of a generic, standardised training that employers will need for technicians.

By publishing the two standards as drafts, we want our members and our training provider network to be shown everything they need to know about them, during the next few months before launch, so they can prepare for certification in 2022.”

For a pilot training to be acceptable the training provider must conform to set of criteria confirmed by the relevant GWO working groups. The pilot must:

• meet the requirements of all the modules listed in the training standards, including requirements of the training facilities
• be aimed at achieving all the learning objectives to fully assess if the training standard is possible to achieve and clear to understand
• have a minimum of two participants for each module present to e.g. assess timings
• have working group members present as observers

Become a GWO Pilot Testing Provider

To complete the pilot testing of the training standards, the GWO Training Committee is calling out to interested training providers to work through the standard and reach out to our training developers Christian Munck Jørgensen and Thomas Grønlund. Please contact them directly using the links below if you are interested in conducting pilot testing of one or both of the two training standards

To pilot GWO Control of Hazardous Energies– contact: Christian Munk Jørgensen

To pilot GWO LIFT Lift Commision and Inspection (LCI); and Lift Commission, Inspection, Installation and Maintenance (LCIIM) – contact: Thomas Grønlund

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About the CoHE Standard

This training standard brings a structured framework for safety training in the high risks resulting from hazardous energies, and in particular electrical energy, when working within the wind industry. To mitigate the risks of hazardous energies the training standard enables participants to manage the risks related to hazardous energies in the wind industry and act safely when in the vicinity of hazardous energies or when working on systems and equipment containing hazardous energies. The training standard’s three modules; Basic Safety, Electrical Safety and Pressure Fluid Safety offer 24 individual lessons which together offer a comprehensive training standard. As for all GWO standards each lesson is sub-divided into individual learning objectives, instructor requirements and suggestions for suitable learning activities which guide participants’ learning experience. This training standard is expected to take 26 hours training (to be confirmed after piloting).

About the Lift- Commision and Inspection (LCI) Module

The LCI Module enables wind technicians to inspect the condition and functionalities of a lift in a WTG to put it into commission. The LCI Module builds on the Lift standards’ first Lift User Module. Like all modules in this standard, LCI is designed to complement brand manuals and local legislative demands. The Lift standard’s specific advantages lie in its breadth of applicability which allows technicians to easily transfer lift safety training knowledge skills and abilities between different model, brands, and regions. This module is expected to take approximately 1 day to complete(to be confirmed after piloting).

About the Lift- Commisioning, Inspection, Installation and Maintenance (LCIIM) Module

For those wind technicians who install and maintain lifts in WTG and as such require broader lift competencies, LCIIM is for them. This module shares the same commisioning and inspection content as the LCI Module, but provides more complex abilities with specific elements on lift installation as well as maintenance. Again it builds on the first Lift User Module in the GWO Lift standard and is designed to complement brand manuals and local legislative demands. This module is expected to take approximately 2 days to complete (to be confirmed after piloting).

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