Across Europe, 37 gigafactories are currently in various stages of development. In Germany alone, ten of these gigafactories are expected to start production over the next few years, including Tesla’s battery factory in Grünheide, Volkswagen’s in Salzgitter, Northvolt 3 in Heide or CATL’s plant near Erfurt. According to Benchmark Minerals, as early as 2024, Europe’s share of battery cell production will be around 15% and thus in second place worldwide behind China – ahead of the USA and the rest of Asia. From today’s perspective, an annual value creation of 250 billion euros in Europe from 2025 is therefore realistic. This could create up to 4 million jobs in the battery sector.

“Germany’s labour market will benefit disproportionately from this development. However, we can already see that companies are desperately seeking experts,” explains Jörg Schemat, management spokesman for TÜV SÜD Akademie. “This makes a broad-based training offensive all the more urgent, especially for those whose jobs are directly or indirectly threatened by the foreseeable end of the combustion engine. EIT InnoEnergy has built up enormous battery expertise over many years and poured it into high-quality educational content. And we have excellent levers and established formats to bring this to the broader learning community.“

A factory with a target production volume of 30 GWh requires an average of about 3,300 employees from planning to volume production. And cell production is just one section of the entire value chain. In addition to the enormous opportunities, this is also one of the key challenges.

Christian Müller, member of the executive board of EIT InnoEnergy, comments: “It is not a foregone conclusion that the extremely positive development in the German and European battery industry will continue in the same way. In addition to critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt or nickel, the availability of well-trained specialists is currently the biggest bottleneck on the way to the targeted 250 billion market. With TÜV SÜD and its academy, we have gained one of Germany’s most renowned training providers as a partner for our EBA Academy, with whom we can now rapidly press ahead with the all-important qualification offensive.“

According to estimates by the European Battery Alliance, there will be a supply gap of up to 800,000 skilled workers in the European battery sector by 2025. In Germany, there will be a shortage of around 65,000 skilled workers by 2030, according to a forecast by the National Platform for the Future of Mobility – if countermeasures are not taken in time. For this reason, EIT InnoEnergy launched the pan-European education and training platform EBA Academy in early 2021 as part of the European Battery Alliance with an official mandate from Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the European Commission.

The EBA Academy addresses an enormous and ever-growing wealth of battery topics for all knowledge levels in digital, blended learning and classroom formats. In localising the training content as well as marketing and delivering the courses, EIT InnoEnergy relies heavily on partnerships with established training providers such as TÜV SÜD Akademie.

The first courses offered via TÜV SÜD Akademie will start in January 2023 and can be booked online.

Basic module: https://www.tuvsud.com/akademie/batteriemanager-grundmodul

Expert: www.tuvsud.com/akademie/batteriemanager-expert

This action will support the Deep Tech Talent Initiative launched by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, a pioneering programme that will skill one million people within European deep tech fields over the next three years.