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SSE Energy Solutions - focus efforts on working with local people on local projects

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Head of Marketing - Source

Meet our SSE Energy Solutions experts

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester talking to Neil Kirkby and Nathan Sanders

American author and management consultant Meg Wheatley has worked on every inhabited continent and with people in all positions - from prime ministers to small-town religious ministers, from the head of the U.S. Army to the Dalai Lama.

She has considered herself a global citizen since her youth.

Her personally stated mission is to create organisations and communities worthy of human habitation. "There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about," she said.

At SSE, we share her ambition. If we are to achieve our net zero goals as a nation, we need to work together and engage with people in their own backyards.

We have already forged a great working relationship with Mayor Andy Burnham and the GMCA. Andy has led the way on regional decarbonisation and I’m proud of the work we’re doing together across Greater Manchester. But we want to do more.

Our new strategy is to focus our efforts on working with local people on local projects. Why move someone up from London to fill an engineering position when you can train a local candidate? To diversify and upskill the local workforce we have developed strong relationships with key regional bodies who share our agenda including the Green Skills Academy, the Energy Innovation Agency, and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Julie Cheetham, career pipeline co-ordinator of SSE Energy Solutions

Working with the Blair Project and Manchester Innovations Activity Hub we have recruited two new team members. Yoel Tekeste and Senthil Kumar will spend the summer with us, learning how we work and developing their own skill sets.

Of course, we always want to work with the best, most innovative companies and we will look to contract the best local suppliers where we can. We will prioritise projects which benefit the local community first.

We are looking at sites in Greater Manchester for our flagship EV charging hubs and we’re developing a ground source heating system for a large public-facing venue in the city centre. We’ve also recently installed an innovative Buildings Energy Management System at Bridgewater Hall that can be operated remotely by the Council.

If we’re to deliver a Just Transition, it's essential we take the communities we work in with us. Manchester is just the first region we’re focussing on. More regional hubs will open across the country in the coming months.

It’s an exciting time for us here at SSE, why not join us on the journey?

See story in The Manchester Evening News