Siemens and Vinci VR have been awarded funding to develop new VR training for the offshore wind sector in Massachusetts and the East Coast of the United States. The sector currently faces a shortage of training in the region, and there is a large workforce gap in the US offshore wind industry. This is affecting installation and maintenance of wind turbines.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and Vinci VR are collaborating to create low cost VR training to address this workforce gap.

Vinci and Siemens have received $124,670 in funding. The grant will be used to create Global Wind Organisation (GWO) certified VR training tools, starting with two courses (Basic Technical Training-Installation and Slinger Signaler).

Building on this grant, Vinci and Siemens hope to later expand development of VR simulations to additional GWO modules. Vinci VR is creating these simulations in partnership with Siemens, a provider of offshore wind turbines globally. The VR integrations for the initial two courses will be developed, audited, and tested by July 2021.

“Offshore wind power is an important part of the clean energy future for not only Massachusetts, but the US as a whole. It will play an important role in a greener future; however, to pull this off, there are pieces of the puzzle that America needs to figure out, such as having a qualified and large workforce,” said Eagle Wu, CEO of VINCI. “Our VR tools can ensure that the US meets its workforce training needs effectively and safely.”

“The US offshore wind industry is growing and shows a lot of promise. We have already secured over 4 GW of conditional offshore wind turbine orders in the US and with this partnership, we hope to help close the workforce training gap in a safe, expedited and cost-efficient manner, all while increasing probability of US based green energy jobs” said Steve Dayney, Head of Offshore, North America, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. “We are excited to partner with Vinci VR on this innovative training series.”