The US Department of Energy (DOE) has officially partnered with Youngstown State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop more educated, highly-skilled workers for the battery manufacturing industry.
This $1 million collaboration will play a pivotal role in the development of the Energy Storage Workforce Innovation Center. As a Midwest training hub, the center will primarily be used to
build a quality workforce in the “Voltage Valley” of Northeastern Ohio as investments in the region have continued to grow.
“It is essential that we prepare a workforce that will lead the next generation of energy storage technologies into practice. Our investment will help continue the region’s reputation of meeting the nation’s manufacturing needs,” US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette stated.
This initiative follows on the heels of the department’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a program seeking to harness the technological capabilities of DOE National Laboratories and partner universities to “accelerate the development of energy-storage technologies.”
According to the Energy Storage Grand Challenge roadmap, DOE aims to expedite innovation in the areas of storage technology and workforce education under these three concepts: Innovate Here, Make Here, and Deploy Everywhere.
Developing Additional Partnerships
This project is among other developing collaborations between the government and higher education institutions that recognize the power of education in establishing a more competent workforce.
SUNY previously launched the Offshore Wind Training Institute with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which will train 2,500 workers needed by the offshore wind industry in order to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035.
Meanwhile, the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) and George Washington University collaborated to include content aligned with NAHQ’s industry-standard Healthcare Quality Competency Framework into a graduate-level course available in GW School of Nursing.