Swedish firm Aira launches Sheffield 'centre of excellence' to train new heat pump installers

The site is next to home renewable specialist All Seasons Energy, which Aira purchased last year.

It is hoped the Sheffield training facility will become a Northern “centre of excellence” for training dozens of new heat pump specialists in the coming years, with plans to open a similar site in the south of England.

An initial pilot scheme involving four apprentices hired by Aira and in partnership with Rotherham College and North Notts College is starting from the site.

Academy manager Sarah Stevens said two technician apprentices and two electrician apprentices have been hired who will leanr on the job assisted by mentors and also do one day a week at college. Their roles will start from September and it will take around three years to fully qualify.

"The Yorkshire academy is going to be a centre of excellence for Aira – we want people to travel to come here and have that development.”

In addition to apprentices, the centre will be used to retrain already qualified gas safe engineers on heat pump installation.

Recent Parliamentary research reveals that in 2022, the UK had just 3,000 qualified heat pump engineers and yet, the government estimates that by 2028, the country will need to have 27,000 installers to meet the national installation target of 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028.

Ms Stevens said it is hoped that eventually up to 50 apprentices a year will be training through the site.

She said: “We are trying to not only upskill existing people but we are aware at some point we would have got all those really good people in the company and so we need to have a look from a succession perspective who else can we draw in. That starts in September with our initial pilot.

"Once the pilot has been embedded into the company this will then grow. We are already so many different young people approaching us from an apprenticeship perspective. We need to start somewhere and four seems like a good number to get the process going.

"We want more cohorts and eventually it could be 10, 20 or 50. From a business perspective we are looking to recruit 8,000 people over the next 10 years – at some point there will be a slow in the experienced people and we need to bring a younger generation in. This is where the apprenticeship scheme is really important.”

Among the quartet of new apprentices is 17-year-old Ollie Hinchcliffe from Rotherham. He will combine his work with Aira with studies at Rotherham College.

He said it was the ideal role for him.

"I like the renewable energy side of things and everything about the environment. For me, this is better than going to uni – it is more hands on. I’m looking forward to getting involved with reducing people’s carbon footprint.

"I would like to stay with this company, it seems like a very close knit group and with lots of nice people.”

Pamela Brown, Aira Group Chief Marketing Officer, said: “I’m immensely proud to open the first-of-a-kind Aira Academy in Sheffield, which enables our ambition to take Europe off gas by training the much-needed green skills workforce.

“It’s electrifying to see so many individuals move over from roles in fossil-fuels to careers in clean energy-tech and we know this is just the start of a shift in paradigm to a more sustainable future.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​Local MP Clive Betts, who was on hand to officially open the new centre, said “many new installers” are needed locally and across the country.

The MP for Sheffield South East and Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee said: "It’s fantastic to see innovative companies such as Aira set up their advanced training facilities in Sheffield, increasing employment opportunities and bringing investment to the local area. If as a country, we are serious about working towards net zero, we are going to need many new installers to meet the predicted demand for low carbon heat pumps with over 230,000 homes in Sheffield still using gas boilers.”

According to Aira, its heat pump is four times more efficient than a conventional gas boiler, reducing heating related costs by 25 per cent and heating related carbon emissions by 75 per cent, rising to 100% when green electricity.