It was on Instagram that the 19-year-old saw the announcement proposing to be trained in four weeks to install solar panels.

The desire to learn "something new", the attraction of "work in the open air" convinced him to join this school site in the suburbs of Berlin, he told AFP.

The hangar resonates with the sounds of drills, screwdrivers, manipulated by clusters of helmeted and arnaché apprentices, training on replicas of the roof placed on the ground.

An effervescence in the image of the boom that the solar sector is experiencing in a Germany thirsty for renewable energies to succeed in its transition and replace Russian gas.

Installed photovoltaic capacity in the residential sector increased by 40% last year compared to 2021.

"Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many people want to emancipate themselves from fossil fuels and high energy costs," said Wolfgang Gründinger, spokesman for Enpal, one of many start-ups riding the trend.

Reconverted delivery drivers

The Berlin-based start-up offers long-term rental solar panels for which its teams install and maintain. Created in 2017, Enpal says it has sold 40,000 subscriptions, including 18,000 last year alone, and is currently running at the rate of 2,000 kits installed per month.

Enpal employees train to install solar panels at the company's training centre in Blankenfelde, south of Berlin, February 15, 2023 © Odd ANDERSEN / AFP

"We have to install a lot of units as quickly as possible, while we have a very severe shortage of skilled workers," says Alexander Friedrich, one of the instructors hired by the company.

Enpal partially solved the problem by setting up its own training school for fitters and specialist electricians in Blankenfelde, south of Berlin, last year. This is the one that Pascal Ode joined at the beginning of the year.

"We recruit people from all walks of life, former pizza makers, cooks, meal delivery people, taxi drivers...", lists Mr. Gründinger. The school trains up to 120 new employees per month.

But the needs are immense: Germany wants 80% of gross electricity consumption to be covered by renewables by 2030, up from 46% last year. The law set the goal of installing 215 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaic power by this date, implying that annual development will be multiplied by three (7.2 GW installed in 2022).

Solar installations are to flourish on the roofs of factories, commercial buildings, in the fields, according to government plans.

But "the shortage of skilled workers threatens to slow down the energy transition" in Europe's largest economy, warns the German Economic Institute (IW), one of the most renowned in the country, in a recent report.

Chinese dependency

So much so that the federation of solar industries BSW says it is counting on the major migration reform prepared for this summer by Olaf Scholz's government to meet its labour needs.

Employees practice installing solar panels on roofs at Enpal's company in Blankenfelde-Mahlow, Germany, February 15, 2023 © Odd ANDERSEN / AFP

"We will develop the integration of foreigners in the solar sector after the entry into force of the new law on the immigration of skilled workers," its president Carsten Körnig told AFP.

The federation cites as an example a recent agreement to send Indian workers trained in their country in photovoltaics to Germany.

Electricians, heating and cooling experts, computer scientists, there is currently a shortage of about 216,000 skilled workers to develop solar and wind energy, according to the IW Institute.

Not to mention the need to rebuild a solar panel production sector, while the overwhelming majority of components (polysilicon, wafers, cells) arrive from China, posing a sovereignty problem for Europeans.

Until the 2010s, Germany had several world leaders in the production of photovoltaic cells.

The reduction of state aid and the rise of Chinese competition have strangled these manufacturers, leading to the elimination of some 100,000 jobs in the sector, according to the IG Metall union.

However, lower cell manufacturing costs and increased demand could revive this industry, such as the new plant inaugurated in 2021 by the Swiss group Meyer Burger, between Berlin and Leipzig, on the site of a former photovoltaic company that went bankrupt ten years ago.

© 2023 AFP