Energy Policy Act Poses Workforce Training Issues

摘要

One small part of the Energy Policy Act could send power industry firms scrambling to get their houses in order. Among the 500 ponderous pages of the Act sits the innocuous-sounding Section 1103, "Training Guidelines for Non-Nuclear Electric Energy Industry Personnel." This section calls for the development of model personnel training guidelines to support the reliability and safety of the non-nuclear electric system. It sets requirements as to who is to be trained and demands that training pay off in terms of improved competency. Further, competency has to be demonstrated according to pre-designed metrics. "When you review most companies against the Act, you find that their training programs fail to measure up," said Brad Kamph, president of Interliance Consulting, a workforce and training consultancy based in Santa Ana, CA. "If the right workforce qualification program is in place, power producers will not only avoid falling foul of the authorities with regard to Energy Policy Act Section 1103 compliance, they will actually boost employee performance and impact the bottom line."