How do you protect birds and marine mammals around a wind turbine? These Connah’s Quay pupils are finding out
Year 9 pupils at Connah’s Quay High School are working on real offshore wind industry challenges set by staff from RWE as part of a programme developed alongside the company’s planned Awel y Môr wind farm.
The Renewables Challenge, developed by the Awel y Môr project team with the school and with support from Careers Wales, gives groups of pupils scientific and engineering problems drawn from the renewables industry to research and present.
Topics include investigating ways to increase biodiversity around the foundations of offshore wind turbines, and methods of monitoring birds and marine mammals during wind farm development and construction, with a focus on the north Wales coastline.
All lesson plans have been designed to meet Welsh curriculum requirements.
Poppy Tremayne, Stakeholder and Skills Manager for RWE, said: “There are so many different skills needed to develop, build and operate renewables projects like offshore wind.
“There are those out in the field carrying out surveys, desk-based engineers working in the development and operations phases of a project, and the technicians that head out on the waves to inspect and maintain our wind turbines.
“Giving students a taste of what is out there for them is hugely important.
“According to the most recent industry figures, the offshore wind industry’s UK workforce grew by 24 per cent from 2023 into 2024, and around 40,000 new jobs are set to be created before 2030.
“With projects like Awel y Môr planned for the sea off the coast of North Wales, there is real opportunity for sustainable careers open to students like these here in Flintshire and across north Wales, as they move through their high school years and learn about steps into industry from there.”
Awel y Môr, which RWE says would generate electricity equivalent to the needs of more than half the homes in Wales, has received its contract for difference and the project team is now working towards a final investment decision.
RWE says the project would create hundreds of jobs during construction, with the operational phase adding a further 50 to the 300 staff it says it directly employs in Wales.
Jack Sargeant MS, Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership and a former Connah’s Quay High School pupil, said: “It’s brilliant to see students at my old school getting hands-on experience with the green skills that will power Wales’s future.
“Initiatives like the RWE Renewables Challenge are exactly what we need to prepare our young people for the thousands of quality jobs being created in renewable energy across Wales.
“By connecting classroom learning with real industry opportunities, we’re giving students in North Wales a clear pathway into sustainable careers on their doorstep.”
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