The Restricted Electrical Licence and why the wind industry needs it.

The restricted electrical licence is comprised of a couple of competencies around disconnect and reconnect of low voltage circuits, and the troubleshooting of problems with low voltage circuits. It is used by the wind industry to allow technicians without A-grade electrical licences to find and replace faulty parts in wind turbines, working only on disconnected circuits.

The licence, or atleast allowing this low level electrical work to be done by those without a full electrical licence is important for a few reasons. Firstly it gives a wider pool or possible recruits in the often rural and regional areas where wind farms are located. Secondly, it allows someone without an electrical licence to be still a useful member of the service team, able to do about 90% of the work required. And lastly, it gives a greater stability to your workforce, because it is not a qualification that opens up a lot of other opportunities for work the way an A-grade electrical licence does.

The important point here is that only 10 percent or less of the work done in the turbines, currently requires an electrical licence. That is because particularly the scheduled servicing for turbines requires almost no electrical work, and this is the staple work of the service technician. The servicing is mostly checking and tensioning bolts, checking key components like the generator coupling, yaw and pitch brakes and motors, gearbox insides, and then lots of cleaning. The cleaning, and the seemingly endless numbers of bolts to be checked and tensioned, tends to get pretty boring for electricians pretty quickly, when they could be wiring houses and doing physically easier work that doesn’t require 80 metre ladder climbs. Electricians therefor, don’t last as wind technicians, turning over pretty rapidly, and after a while there are no more in the district.  

The only work that currently requires an A-grade licence, is the live troubleshooting of issues with the turbine, and any upgrade work that changes wiring. And as the turbine monitoring software systems steadily improve, and they are moving ahead very fast, the need for live troubleshooting in the turbines will decline, leaving even less to keep an electrician interested and occupied.

It is true that the electrical systems in turbines are also likely to advance, and may well increase in complexity in the years to come, and this will be something that needs to be watched. It is also incumbent on the industry to ensure that the current regulations are not abused, meaning rules are not stretched and non-licenced technicians don’t push the boundaries of their licences. Clearly, any accidents involving work done by someone with a restricted licence will result in a tighter licensing and regulatory framework for the industry. But these two points are about the future, the current position does not support tighter controls on electrical work in wind turbines, and even if there is a push to tighten control on electrical work, it should be through a wind technician qualification rather than demanding an A-grade licence for removing and replacing components.

Licensed electricians probably make up about 40% of the wind service technician workforce in Australia right now, and as argued, they turn over faster than most jobs, and are often hard to find locally when your windfarm is as isolated as many in Australia are. If the licensing authorities wish to raise this percentage, it will clearly be strongly resisted by the industry, due to the significant staffing problems that such a move would create. There are just not the electricians living around wind farms who could be persuaded to do the work required.