NSCC to launch wind turbine technician program in 2026

Nova Scotia Community College officials have tapped a Cape Breton campus for a new one-year program for wind turbine technicians.

Port Hawkesbury's Strait Area Campus, which is adjacent to several wind energy and green hydrogen projects in the region, will welcome a yearly average of 15 students to the new program beginning in the fall of 2026.

The program is the first of its kind in Nova Scotia, according to Patty Charlton, the manager of NSCC's School of Technology and Environment. Prince Edward Island's Holland College and the College of the North Atlantic in Newfoundland and Labrador each have their own wind turbine programs, and New Brunswick is now preparing to roll out a similar course.

In NSCC's case, Charlton pointed to the approaching 2030 deadline for Nova Scotia to achieve 50 per cent of its electricity generation through wind energy, and suggested that a shortage of wind turbine technicians could hobble these efforts in the Strait area and around the province. 

"In recognizing some of the new labour skills that are going to be needed in terms of that transformation of the energy sector here in Nova Scotia, the gap was the technicians needed to install and maintain those offshore turbines themselves, which meant that we needed a new program to address that labour gap," Charlton said. 

For the first three to five years of the program's operation, it will concentrate on onshore wind turbines, since all of the 300-plus turbines now in operation around Nova Scotia fall into this category, she said. 

However, the course is expected to include an offshore component by 2035, she added, pointing to the presence of the NSCC's Nautical Institute at the Port Hawkesbury campus as a major reason for optimism.

"That means we have all the infrastructure we need to be able to pivot and provide the skills needed to operate, install and maintain that infrastructure in a marine environment," said Charlton.

"We're very fortunate at the NSCC that we have such a state-of-the-art facility that's already up and running at the Strait Area Campus."

The Nautical Institute is equipped with a marine navigation simulator and multiple support vessels. Strait Area Campus principal Vivek Saxena said the campus also boasts a wave tank for marine training, a free-fall lifeboat and other training amenities at the Port Hawkesbury waterfront, and a fire training facility. 

"Some of the training which is required for the offshore wind industry aligns with our assets at the college," Saxena said. "So it was a really easy choice for the college to locate the program where most of the assets lie."