Free Online Education in Wind Energy- Distance Learning Course

Vestas a world leader in providing Wind Energy Solutions has  installed over 39,000 wind turbines in 63 countries on five continents and in 2008, the company installed a new wind turbine every three hours worldwide. These new wind turbines generated more than 60 million MWh a year, enough power to provide electricity for every household in a country the size of Spain with its population of 45 million.  

E-learning is used internally at Vestas to train employees around the world in everything from the introduction of the company to technical training. As the world’s largest producer of wind turbines, Vestas has decided to make it as simple and easy as possible for pupils, students, teachers, and others to learn about wind power and the energy challenges facing the world. To this end,Vestas has announced plans to make its award winning e-learning programme freely available as an online distance learning course . As of next year, anyone interested can access Vestas’ online e-learning education programmes free of charge on the Vestas website. At www.vestas.com, a series of English language based distance learning courses and programmes will be made available for free. The goal is to provide a greater knowledge of wind energy as a real alternative to traditional energy sources like oil and gas.Vestas is experiencing a great number of requests from educational institutions to deliver content for their courses.

“Many people outside of Vestas have questions about wind power. As the world’s leading manufacturer of wind turbines, we would like to put wind at the top of the global agenda. For that purpose, our award winning e-learning system is perfect. We can easily make knowledge accessible to a large group of people,” says Roald Steen Jakobsen, president of Vestas People & Culture. Vestas has been using online learning programs since 2007. Employees are able to learn about the company, and wind power in general, in a quick and simple way.

In 2009, the programme won two international awards for its achievements; in several cases, it was proven to be more efficient and effective than standard classroom teaching. In April, Vestas received the recognised Bersin Award, and was the first Scandinavian company to do so. And just yesterday, Vestas was awarded the distinguished silver “Excellence in Learning” prize by Brandon Hall Research in the category “Best use of virtual worlds in learning”.

“Obviously, we are very proud that we are, once again, recognised for our way of working with e-learning. The recognition shows that we are at the forefront of the e-learning possibilities, and people notice the results we generate. We hope that others can benefit from our work, and we look forward to cooperating with schools and universities,” says Roald Steen Jakobsen.

The first online education modules will be uploaded on Vestas’ website in the coming months, but you can sample their programme now at: www.vestas.com/vestasworld.

Contact Information:

Roald Steen Jakobsen, president, Vestas People & Culture,can be reached through Mette Madsen Dam, communications manager, Vestas People & Culture, at +45 4112 5759 or memda@vestas.com.