Multinational Schneider Electric plans to hire about 40 people over the next two years but the company warns there is a shortage of skilled workers and apprentices in the State.
Schneider makes equipment and software that allow businesses and commercial buildings to control and manage their electricity consumption.
It employs around 400 engineers, technicians and electricians in Ireland servicing customers in industry, technology and data centres. According to Chris Collins, country president, Ireland, it hopes to increase that figure by about 10 per cent over the next two years.
However, he cautioned that a shortage of skilled or qualified workers posed a challenge to the company. “We need more electricians, field service engineers and skilled technicians,” he said.
Mr Collins argued that apprentice programmes run by State agency Solas needed more places to meet demand.
French-based Schneider Electric was recently ranked number one in Time magazine’s list of the world’s most sustainable companies of 2024.
Gwenaelle Avice Huet, executive vice-president of its Europe operations, explained that Schneider’s systems aided customers in cutting electricity use by up to 30 per cent. She said that, alongside increasing renewable electricity generation, this was the “other side” of the push towards more sustainable energy use.
“We think a lot about renewable energy, but we need also to curb demand, to use less energy,” she said.
Ms Avice Huet, a former energy adviser to the French government, was in Ireland this week to meet Schneider’s local executives and customers. She said that buildings accounted for 40 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, so cutting their energy demand was key to tackling climate change.
She added that Schneider’s systems allowed commercial and industrial building owners to do this without significantly altering the structures themselves. “They are not intrusive and a lot of them work in existing buildings,” she said.
Mr Collins argued that Ireland needed to add more renewables to the system and to speed up the rate at which it was building new infrastructure. He also said electricity grids would have to become smarter and more flexible to adapt to the new environment.
Schneider is on track to become carbon neutral by 2025. The group maintains that its technology has helped customers either reduce or avoid producing 553 million tonnes of carbon dioxide since 2018. It recently opened a new Irish headquarters in Citywest, Dublin.
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