Improving, increasing and facilitating access to renewable energy education and training in Latin-America
While many Latin American countries have incorporated the ambitious expansion of renewables as a key element in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), one factor hampering growth in the renewables sector is an ongoing lack of skilled workers. This needs to be addressed by appropriate educational programmes, well-equipped educational establishments and competent educators. For the solar and wind power segments in particular, the project is providing partner countries with help in identifying training needs, improving equipment in educational facilities and ensuring that course materials are up-to-date. The project lead shares project results with their project team members. Universities participating in the project can offer their students a better quality of training over the long term. In turn, course graduates can then apply their domain expertise to help promote the energy transition in many different areas.
- Countries
- Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Peru, Uruguay
- IKI funding
- 6,570,000.00 €
- Duration
- 03/2019 till 08/2027
- Status
- open
- Implementing organisation
- Latin American Energy Organisation (OLADE)
- Political Partner
-
- Energy Secretariat of Honduras
- Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) - Peru
- Ministry of Energy and Mines - Dominican Republic
- Ministry of Environment (MINAM) - Peru
- Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining - Uruguay
- Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) – Brazil
- Ministry of Mining and Energy (MinEnergia) - Colombia
- Secretariat of Energy - Argentina
- Implementing Partner
-
- Federal Institute of Paraíba
- Global Factor International Consulting S.L.
- National Autonomous University of Honduras
- National University of Peru
- Renewables Academy AG (RENAC)
- Secretariat of Energy - Argentina
- State University of Campinas
- Technological University of Uruguay (UTEC)
- University of Buenos Aires (UBA)
State of implementation/results
- The first and second phases of the project identified the training needs in Latin America, analysed existing curricula for solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind energy and energy efficiency in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Peru and Uruguay and published the results including:
- Capacity Needs Assessments for renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
- Mapping of Existing Facilities on Education & Training Programmes in Latin America.
- Existing curricula for the most relevant renewable energy and energy efficiency markets in the region.
- As of 03/2026 the project delivered numerous training courses:
- 12 train-the-trainers’ courses in Argentina, Peru and Uruguay in online and face-to-face formats (first phase of the project).
- 5 train-the-trainers virtual courses have been completed and delivered to all ETRELA Universities’ faculty members.
- 70 online training courses. For 2025, a total of 19 courses were delivered and for the first months of 2026 4 courses have already been delivered.
- 7 executive development programs – in blended modality. 2 additional programs will be completed in 2026.
- Training centres on wind energy, solar thermal and photovoltaics at Universities in Peru, Argentina and Uruguay have been set up during the first phase of the project. During ETRELA II, these universities are equipping their centres with energy efficiency equipment.
- The technologies selected for each university of ETRELA II are the following: UNICAMP (Brazil) – solar PV, wind and energy efficiency; IFPB (Brazil) – solar PV, wind and energy efficiency; UTP (Colombia) – microgrid based on PV and Wind and Energy Efficiency; INTEC (Dominican Republic) – solar PV, wind and energy efficiency; and, UNAH (Honduras) – solar PV, solar thermal and energy efficiency.
- The 1st Regional Conference was developed in Quito, Ecuador on June 11, 2019; the 2nd Regional Conference was developed in Quito, Ecuador on July 28, 2022; the 3rd Regional Conference was developed in Asunción, Paraguay on October 28, 2024; and, the 4th regional conference will be held by mid 2027. During th 3rd Regional Conference a survey was conducted to all 27 Member Countries of LAC, the idea is to obtain inputs for the development of a roadmap on how to implement regional quality standards and this roadmap will be developed during 2026.
- The knowledge gateway – capevLAC was developed and officially launched in 2021 and received an upgrade in 2024. It currently has more than 18,000 users in the region. It merges the training platform and an expert’s network and provides access to courses as well as to the database of professionals and during 2025 will serve also for a place for different forums to allow discussion on different topics to take place.
- Given that new topics are being introduced in the second phase of the project, now two of the thematic areas of the platform are directly related to the project, which include the “Technologies” and “Just Energy Transition” areas.
Latest Update:
04/2026
Project relations
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