Ocean Winds
Shaun Mitchell wasn't looking for a career change in 2019.
The 30-year-old Scotland native had spent most of his career as an electrical technician at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil-field-services companies. It offered Mitchell his first apprenticeship after he graduated from North East Scotland College in 2013 with a certificate in electrical engineering. He completed several years of training before heading off to work on offshore oil rigs.
Mitchell saved enough money to take a six-month break and traveled through Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. He was a freelance electrician in Sydney for a while but then returned home near Aberdeen, Scotland, and got his job back at Halliburton.
In 2019, Mitchell heard from an old supervisor who had since moved into the offshore-wind industry. Vestas, a wind manufacturer, was looking for technicians for a project in Aberdeen Bay, Scotland, and the supervisor recommended Mitchell for the job.
"I wasn't really sure because I was quite used to oil and gas, and I enjoyed it," Mitchell said.
There were drawbacks, however. The work could be unpredictable.
"You'd get a call and have to go offshore the next day, not knowing if you'd be there a couple days or three weeks," he said. "The line of work is good when you're young. But when you start having more commitments, it becomes a little harder."
Mitchell decided to take the interview with Vestas and left Halliburton, wanting to be a wind-turbine technician.
"A lot of my skills from working in the oil and gas industry passed straight into the wind industry, which was really beneficial for me," Mitchell said, adding that wind farms are managed by automated control systems, similar to oil and gas equipment.
Moray West Offshore Wind Farm – Ocean Winds
He made the jump at a good time. While the UK has been a leader in offshore wind for more than two decades, development has sped up in the past few years — particularly in Scotland — as countries race to meet renewable-energy goals. The UK has the second-largest offshore sector behind China. By early 2023, wind farms became the UK's largest source of electricity, surpassing natural gas.
Britain this year budgeted £1 billion, or about $1.3 billion, for renewable-energy subsidies, with 80% of the funds set aside for new offshore wind farms, Bloomberg reported. The UK government wants to boost offshore-wind capacity by almost fourfold by 2030, and overall employment in the sector is expected to triple by then.
In the US, wind-turbine technician is the fastest-growing job. While the absolute number of new jobs isn't that big, it represents a projected 45% increase between 2022 and 2032, more than any other occupation. Industry groups forecast global demand for about 240,000 new recruits by 2027 across countries including Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, and the US.
Mitchell spent more than four years at Vestas, starting as a technician and quickly moving up to deputy service supervisor and then shift supervisor. Vestas provided training that paved the way for Mitchell's advancement.
He said that offshore-wind technicians' day-to-day depended on the weather. The seas can't be too rough; otherwise, it's risky for the crew to travel to the wind farm.
The sizes of the vessel and the crew also matter. A larger boat can handle rougher waters. That means there's more work and less downtime. But technicians tend to work a couple of weeks on, a couple of weeks off — so they're away from home for extended periods.
Smaller vessels have to wait for the right weather conditions and ferry back and forth to port each day. Technicians can go home each night, but there's more downtime, especially in the winter, Mitchell said.
"It's rare that an entire wind farm will go down," he added. "But there has been times when multiple turbines go down, but the weather's so rough there's nothing you can do."
Moray West Offshore Wind Farm — Ocean Winds.
In October, Mitchell left Vestas for Ocean Winds, a joint venture between EDP Renewables and Engie that's focused on offshore-wind development. He's now the operations and maintenance supervisor at Ocean Winds' Moray West project off the coast of Scotland.
The 882-megawatt project is still under construction. Once it's finished, it will generate enough power for about 1.3 million homes. Mitchell's team will be responsible for maintaining the wind farms' infrastructure both above and below the water, including the cables that carry power to onshore substations.
Mitchell said he'd been able to advance his career in the wind industry a lot faster than in oil and gas. Ocean Winds declined to disclose salary information.
"Oil and gas is quite well established. It's been around for years and years, so there aren't many opportunities to move up quickly," Mitchell said. "With offshore wind, there's always new sites going up, and they need so much personnel. I got in at a lucky time."
