Educational courses

The aim of the project is to develop the skills of relevant authorities, such as national, regional and local authorities or energy agencies, in order to effectively establish and operate one-stop-shops (OSS) to assist homeowners throughout the process of energy refurbishment of residential buildings. The project aims to accelerate the pace of housing renovation, contribute to the European Green Deal and improve the well-being and health of citizens and future generations.

PROJECT ACTIVITIES:

• Develop qualification and upskilling programmes and pilot test them by delivering training to relevant stakeholders, including ‘training of trainers’.
• Training will be modular to cover different aspects of home renovation and will be easily adaptable to local needs in the participating countries and across Europe.
• Mapping of local experiences and identification of skills gaps and needs to develop appropriate training and certification programmes.
• Development of adapted training modules and their transformation into digital training materials through the use of innovative training methods such as online courses (MOOCs) with gamification elements.
• Testing, validating and preparing for the implementation of developed training, qualification and certification programmes through dedicated trainings.
• Ensuring sustainability, exploitation and replication of results, which includes activities to ensure sustainable use of the developed capacity-building components once the project has ended.

EXPECTED PROJECT RESULTS:

Status of the project: on-going

Project summary:

The use of RES and digital technologies in the building sector is strongly advocated in current EU directives and regulations. These technologies play an important role in achieving a fully decarbonized building stock by 2050, as well as addressing the energy crisis in Europe. Given this, the NS4nZEBs project aims to address the existing skills mismatches that currently characterize the professionals involved in this process, and those that are increasingly in demand and will be vitally important in the future, to increase the number of qualified specialists in the field of photovoltaic systems, smart electrical systems, heat pumps and hydrogen technologies at all levels of design, operation and maintenance of buildings.

This will lead to a wider application of new energy-efficient and RES technologies for the successful introduction of nearly zero-energy buildings, scaling up ambitious renovation projects, introducing efficient heating and cooling based on renewable energy sources, -especially heat pumps, thereby contributing to the gradual reduction of the EU’s dependence on fossil fuel imports.

This goal will be achieved by developing new and improving existing training methods and curricula, as well as qualification courses for all types of professionals involved in the building value chain (“blue collar” and “white collar”). All stakeholders – authorities, employers, end-users as well as VET providers – are involved in working on feedback mechanisms that ensure that training programs and curricula are aligned with the labor market and proactively integrate new skills. Furthermore, the number of people who will benefit from the regularly updated training developed within this project will increase steadily in the long term.

The Consortium is a partnership for excellence involving experts (installers, engineers, architects, IT, automation, education and communications experts) from 6 countries, namely Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Spain and Ukraine.

The general objective is to tackle the existing skills gap in continuous training for plumbers and electricians concerning geothermal and solar skills, by creating and implementing a demand driven training in order to:

The aim of the project is to fill the existing gaps in the continuing education of electricians and plumbers for the installation of geothermal and solar installations, by creating and implementing training tailored to the demand and needs of the market with the aim of:

A specific goal of the project is to increase the exchange of experience and practice between educational institutions and the labour market.

For the purposes of the GSS-VET project, a web platform has been created to provide online access to all training materials both in English and in the respective partner languages.

Assessment and certification procedures are in line with international standards.

The skills of trained installers certified by national training centers are recognized by the entire network of training centers.

The first step was the development of detailed training plans for the three types of installations: solar thermal, photovoltaic and geothermal systems and determining the requirements for the acquisition of skills and competencies of the trainees, as follows:

The second step involved determining the necessary experience of trainers (experts in this field with relevant experience) and trainees (over the age of 16 with relevant secondary education and/or professional experience).

The next step was aimed at choosing learning methods and approaches for the three types of systems, as well as the structure of the courses:

Training courses include a theoretical part and practical training. Theory is taught in a classroom and online via the Internet, practical exercises are conducted in laboratories or on an actual site.