Siemens is to hire 340 engineers at a new research and manufacturing centre in Manchester, who will be tasked with building high-voltage direct current transmission systems capable of efficiently transporting electricity hundreds of miles from remote offshore wind farms.
The German engineering giant announced today that it will create a Global Centre of Competence for high-voltage grid connections at Princess Park in Manchester that will focus on designing and building systems for the UK and Northwest Europe.
HVDC cables are an emerging energy transmission technology that provide a more efficient means of transmitting electricity over long distances than the more widely used AC cables. The main market for HVDC is offshore wind farms and subsea inter-connectors, although advocates of the technology believe it could play a key role in the development of a pan-European supergrid.
A Siemens spokeswoman told
Business Green that recruitment will start immediately and continue through to 2015. She declined to reveal the value of investment in the new centre, saying only that it was a "significant" sum of money.
John Wilcock, director of major projects for Siemens Transmission and Distribution, said the centre will help meet the demands of a buoyant market.
"The UK's Round 3 offshore wind farms... will need HVDC technology to overcome the power losses that occur when bringing electricity ashore over longer distances," he said. "Strengthening our UK expertise in HVDC is therefore central to Siemens' strategy and will help us maintain our leading market position in the UK."
Siemens said it will recruit intensively from universities that are active in electrical and power engineering, at both graduate and post-graduate level, as well as from the existing workforce in the UK and Europe.
It will also aim to recruit engineers from related sectors, including oil and gas, industrial automation and the armed forces.