BE's apprentices to set sail

Friday, 9 May 2008

The company at the centre of new build in the UK, British Energy (BE), has signed a major contract to train engineers for current and future power stations.

 

Training with HMS Sultan's Tele Wall  (Image: Flagship)

BE adds around 50 new apprentices to its workforce of 6000 each year. A £10 million ($19 million) deal signed recently with Flagship Training means that from September these young workers will undergo training at facilities originally created for the purposes of the Royal Navy. The contract covers the next five years of apprentice intakes, while the training course itself lasts two years.

 

Flagship was originally created to make maximum use of Royal Navy training facilities, when not in use by the force itself. A joint venture between BAE Systems and VT Group, it operates an academy at HMS Sultan in Gosport, in the southern county of Hampshire.

 

Despite its seagoing name, HMS Sultan is actually a set of buildings. However, it is notable in that it hosts the small pressurized water reactor simulator used by the Royal Navy in training staff to operate and maintain the UK's small fleet of nuclear-propelled submarines. Together with the country's only civilian research reactor, owned by Imperial College, and BE's simulator for the Sizewell B nuclear power plant, HMS Sultan has a strategic role as one of the few hands-on facilities where British workers can train in nuclear operation.

 

David Barber, BE's head of technical training said the training by Flagship would be "second to none." He continued: "Ships' propulsion units and generators are like self contained power stations and submarines contain their own nuclear reactor. It provides the perfect training ground."

 

"We are developing mature and capable employees who will come back to our power stations to make a major contribution both in the stations we operate today and hopefully in any new nuclear power stations we run in future," concluded Barber.