Establishment of A National Clean Energy Skills Certification Scheme
ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL CLEAN ENERGY SKILLS CERTIFICATION SCHEME
In line with the above, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through the Nigerian Energy Support Programme (NESP), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) on Monday, 14th October, 2019, for the implementation of the National Clean Energy Skills Certification in Nigeria.
Under this agreement, COREN, considering its mandate as an Engineering Regulatory Body and Skills Development Council, was entrusted to serve as the National Certification Body for the certification of skills in Clean Energy in Nigeria. The aim of this project is to establish a pool of locally-trained and certified professionals who would harness the opportunities in the growing renewable energy market in Nigeria. These professionals will become the pioneers to be admitted in the 5th national register of ARTISANS being opened by COREN.
COREN ensures that adequate screening of the competency of professionals is carried out, qualified individuals are certified accordingly to pursue a career in the renewable energy sector in Nigeria, placed on the Renewable Energy/Energy Efficiency (RE/EE) mobile register and given wide publicity. This, COREN has been able to achieve overtime, by maintaining a standard comparable to what is seen in the developed countries, in clean energy skills certification. At least quarterly, COREN engages all stakeholders in the sector and two of such engagements have birthed the revalidation of the competency standards of the training and certification areas/domains in July 2024, with the industry fully represented.
Some experts from different organisations in the RE sector, as well as the RE/EE Alliance, who have years of experience and professional expertise were inaugurated into the Industry Advisory Committee (IAC). They provide oversight and advisory functions for the Certification Scheme.
Currently, COREN has twenty-one (21) Training Institutions as recognized and accredited partners, situated in various states of the country, providing training in RE/EE. The network of training partners is still expanding. Four (4) CBT test centres have been established in 4 strategic locations in the Federation, namely:
- Abuja
- Lagos
- Enugu
- Kano
The Nigerian Energy Support Programme – COREN’s development partner – is a 33 million Euro technical assistance programme, co-funded by the European Union and the German Government and is jointly implemented by the Federal Ministry of Power (FMP) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). It aims to promote investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and rural electrification.
The Certification areas under this Clean Energy Certification Scheme are as thus:
- Mini-Grid Design – Focus on solar PV and micro-hydro
- Solar PV Installation
- Solar PV Installation Supervision
- Rural Hydropower Civil Engineering
- Energy Management
- Energy Audit
COREN developed a framework for the delivery of the certification scheme and determined the capacity requirement and technical support for initiating the scheme. The Certification Scheme was officially launched and kick-started in November 2021, and since then COREN has been delivering on this mandate. Several batches of the Certification Examination have been conducted successfully, with a few sponsored by corporate organisations.
On 16th June, 2025, COREN signed an MoU with the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) to synergize efforts in the implementation of the RE/EE Certification Scheme.
SHELL ADVANCED TECHNICAL PROGRAMME FOR ENGINEERING GRADUATES AND ENGINEERS
The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) approached and signed an MoU with COREN in October 2020, on the training and certification of Engineers and Engineering graduates and providing hands-on experience in technical areas, covering all engineering disciplines, such as:
- Oil and Gas Refining Technology
- Rotating Equipment, Mechanical Static Equipment Design, Heat Transfer, Materials and Corrosion
- Civil, Offshore, Subsea, Pipeline Systems
- Instrumentation, Automation, Control, Modeling and Optimization, amongst others.
COREN through its PPD&C Unit, has the power to accredit training institutions in the 6 geo-political zones, under these and upcoming Skills Proficiency Certification areas. It is also saddled with the responsibilities of credentialing and certifying trained professionals to practice in their respective core proficiency areas.
In all, Engineering Practitioners are expected to earn mandatory CPD points/units as a pre-requisite for the renewal of their COREN annual practicing license. Points can be earned through different training & certification areas deployed by COREN, the annual COREN Engineering Assembly, etc.