PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Skills4DHC addresses both challenges, namely the need to develop skills and qualification of professionals, but also to recruit enough professionals for the district heating and cooling (DHC) sector. The overall objective of the Skills4DHC project is to strengthen the capacity of targeted professionals across the DHC value chain and to meet the growing demand of skilled employees and workers for the ambitious sustainable energy transition plans of the heating sector in Europe. Skills4DHC broadly covers the target groups of DHC qualification: besides staff of DHC branch enterprises itself, white collar civil servants in national, regional and local level authorities are trained for administrating heat planning and developing DHC on site. A programme for university courses addresses the young academic generation and a programme is developed for blue collar workers urgently needed for the construction, operation and maintenance of new DHC systems. Recruitment activities aim at additionally winning trainees for these training offers and bind them to the DHC sector. In cooperation with training organizations and industry, Skills4DHC develops in total 13 specific DHC training schemes structured in programs for the different sector target groups and DHC topics. Key training content are the decarbonization of existing DHC based on the use of renewable energies and waste heat, network efficiency as well as the extension of markets with new climate neutral DHC. The training programs are tested and verified in six target countries: Austria, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy and The Netherlands. A replication programme as well as a dedicated universal transnational training programme will transfer the developed concepts to other countries in Europe. This will boost the heat transition in Europe through an increase of sustainable DHC systems implemented by a skilled and trained workforce.