Editor’s note: This is part of a series on closing the sustainability skills gap with the resources available right now. The collection includes over a dozen articles and more than 200 training opportunities in areas such as climate and net-zero strategy, procurement and supply chain, ESG and sustainable finance, professional certifications and free upskilling.
A lot of players are involved in driving the global energy transition, and the team at Duke University’s Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment published a diagram of the energy value chain earlier this year that illustrates the complexity of the energy sector nicely. At the most basic level, entities fall roughly into one of three categories: energy suppliers; energy end users; and supporting organizations. The below collection of training opportunities will benefit anyone helping organizational energy end users to develop or procure renewable energy. Whether you’re a sustainability professional at a company pursuing net-zero goals, a consultant helping clients to incorporate renewable energy into their portfolios or a financial professional interested in funding these projects, there is something here for you.
The first group of offerings provide context and a big-picture understanding of the global energy transition and grid modernization. The next group offers frameworks for incorporating equity and justice considerations into energy-related projects and decisions. The third group provides both overviews and deep dives on clean and renewable generation and storage technologies, and the final group centers on skills for moving specific projects forward with courses from how to evaluate a project’s profitability and risk to how to secure financing from a variety of sources.
No curation of renewable energy resources would be complete without mentioning the incredible work of both the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) and the Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI). While neither offers publicly available courses — the CELI fellowship application is competitive and CEBA participation requires organizational membership — both have been training leaders in renewable energy for many years and offer outstanding learning experiences.
The adoption of renewable energy is also just one part of what energy end users should be working on. The below courses do not cover energy efficiency, weatherization, demand response, electrification or electric vehicles — all of which should arguably be addressed prior to assessing your renewable energy needs. Those skills, along with skills related to the supply side of things, will be the topics of future articles.
As is often the case with these types of lists, I’m sure I’ve missed some. If your favorite offering isn’t included here, I warmly invite you to join the conversation on LinkedIn to tell me and your fellow readers about it. Thanks in advance for your help with bringing these resources out into the open so that more people can get to work on advancing sustainable business practices.
Courses on the global energy transition and grid modernization
These courses provide important context around the global energy transition. Each one emphasizes a unique combination of the various aspects of the transition: technology;