Recently, the Tianjin Science and Technology Bureau and other six departments issued the “Tianjin Science and Technology Support carbon peak carbon neutral implementation Plan (2022-2030)” proposed to strengthen the selection and training of talents in the green low-carbon field, increase support for scientific and technological talents in the green low-carbon field, and actively introduce all kinds of talents urgently needed for the innovation and development of green low-carbon science and technology, and strengthen the construction of talent team.

Not only Tianjin, looking at the whole country, the relevant government departments in Shanghai, Jilin, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia and other places have also issued implementation plans on science and technology to support carbon peak carbon neutral (hereinafter referred to as “double carbon”), of which “improving the ability to cultivate green and low-carbon talents” has become a content mentioned in various programs.

Industrial and technological changes have created new demands

Before the “double carbon” goal was proposed, China’s clean energy construction has made great achievements, in the fields of hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic and hydrogen energy, energy storage, talent training and construction are in an orderly way. When the “double carbon” goal was proposed, a broad and profound economic and social systemic change began, and the talent team in the field of clean energy began to help achieve the “double carbon” goal of the transformation of the road.

In the face of the new situation, can the original talent team meet the demand?

The answer is no.

Niu Ping, director of the development Service Department of the Science and Technology Talent Exchange and development Service Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology, found in the survey that the lack of strategic scientists, the scarcity of compound talents, and the shortage of industrial talents have become the main characteristics of the current “double carbon” science and technology talent market.

Niu Ping said that for the goal of “double carbon”, general education is difficult to meet the training needs of composite “double carbon” scientific and technological talents, resulting in a mismatch between the training of “double carbon” scientific and technological talents in colleges and universities and the market demand. At the same time, the lack of industry-university-research cooperation in the field of “double carbon” and the lack of industrial talents are the reasons for the shortage of “double carbon” talents.

In terms of specific industries, it can be seen from the plan issued by the Ministry of Education that there is a particular lack of talent support in the fields of energy storage and hydrogen energy, carbon capture, utilization and storage, carbon finance and carbon trading.

“The change in talent demand stems from the change in industry demand.” Relevant industry experts said, “Before the ‘double carbon’ goal was proposed, the hydrogen energy and energy storage industry focused on ‘energy’, and after the ‘double carbon’ goal was proposed, the industry’s focus changed to ‘carbon’. In other words, the proposal of the ‘two-carbon’ goal has changed the technical goal of hydrogen and energy storage and other related industries from the pursuit of relative emission reduction rate to the pursuit of absolute emission reduction.”

Not only industry changes, but also technological changes will bring about changes in talent needs.

Carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology is vividly called “carbon catcher”, which can capture carbon dioxide from industry or other carbon emission sources, and transport it to a specific location for use or storage, with the characteristics of large emission reduction scale and obvious emission reduction benefits.

However, for a long time in the past, carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage technologies were not “integrated”, but dispersed in different industries. With the continuous increase of carbon reduction requirements, the technical demand for large-scale low-carbon utilization of fossil energy has also increased, and carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage technologies have been organically “combined” together. At the same time, industry practitioners should also complete the “cross-integration” of skills and knowledge, and in addition, interdisciplinary talents are needed to join.

Enterprises, universities and research institutes will promote personnel training

In Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia, the Three Gorges Modern Energy Innovation Demonstration Park (hereinafter referred to as the Demonstration Park) has been built. In the demonstration park, China Yangtze River Three Gorges Group Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as the Three Gorges Group) “pulled a group”, together with industry-university-research partners, to jointly explore the “source network load and storage” (” power supply, grid, load, energy storage “as the overall planning of the new power operation mode) integrated new energy system development, the construction of source network load and storage technology research and development test base.

“The experimental base for the research and development of source network charging and storage technology in the demonstration park is a base for the Three Gorges Group to train talents in energy storage technology.” Yin Likun, director of the Comprehensive energy Technology Research Center of the Three Gorges Group Science and Technology Research Institute, said that in 2020, they will comprehensively consider the world’s advanced energy storage technology, combined with China’s geographical and climatic characteristics, choose to study eight new energy storage technologies, and build two large-scale laboratories that are urgently needed by the industry. More than 20 scientific research institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and North China Electric Power University are jointly engaged in technical research and talent training.

After just two years, a series of energy storage technology achievements have been landed: the current domestic capacity of the largest power router equipment, the largest and most abundant type of energy storage system dynamic simulation platform, megawatt-hour level solid state lithium-ion battery energy storage key technology and engineering application projects……

Scientific research achievements set the “industry’s best” at the same time, scientific research talents continue to emerge. According to the statistics of the Science and Technology Research Institute of the Three Gorges Group, the group has trained more than 20 doctors, of which 15 young backbone R & D personnel have embarked on the frontline of enterprise energy storage.

Outside the industry, colleges and universities that take training talents as their own responsibility have also accelerated the pace of exploration.

In September 2021, Tsinghua University established the Carbon Neutral Research Institute. As a cross-disciplinary research platform, the institute integrates the disciplinary advantages of Tsinghua University in relevant fields, faces the problems such as the scarcity of compound talents in the field of “dual carbon”, collaborates to create subversive core technologies such as low carbon, zero carbon, and negative carbon, and promotes the construction of carbon-neutral related disciplines and high-level personnel training.

Promote the construction and training of carbon neutral talent team with systematic thinking.