Global crane rental, heavy lift and engineered transport group Sarens has highlighted the capabilities of its training centre in Cape Town, the Sarens Academy South Africa, particularly its focus on developing the skills required by the country’s, and the region’s, growing wind power sector. The wind power training and skills development courses provided by the academy are aligned with the standards of the Global Wind Organisation (GWO).

“The wind industry in South Africa will generate between 22 300 and 35 700 new jobs by 2030 according to the Just Energy Transition Skilling for Employment Programme,” highlighted the company. “This forecast for growth in employment in the sector comes at a time when the latest data from the Integrated Resource Plan 2025, developed by the South African government’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, points to an onshore wind generation capacity in the country of 34 000 MW by 2039. Such enormous potential highlights the urgency for the country to develop a technically skilled workforce.”

The Sarens Academy South Africa specialises in providing the skills required by onshore wind energy, renewable energy construction, and heavy lifting sectors. The training has a strong focus on both safety and technical excellence, is multidisciplinary, and is GWO-accredited.

The training centre does not serve only South Africa. Students from other countries in the region also attend, to obtain internationally recognised training. This ensures regional capacity building and knowledge transfer in the wind energy and heavy lifting sectors.

The academy also provides training for the construction and other sectors, such as onshore, offshore oil and gas, crane and transport sectors, that also need safety training. It offers all the mandatory health and safety training for these sectors.

The Sarens Academy also focuses on inclusive development. It actively encourages and promotes the inclusion of women and unemployed young people.

Sarens itself has been involved in the development of wind energy in Southern Africa. In Namibia, the group installed the wind turbine generators (which weighed 125 t each) at the InnoVent Diaz Wind Farm. This is one of the projects which won the group the Excellence in Engineering Award at the 2025 Lifting Africa Awards.