Student electricians were given critical insight into their future careers from a special guest speaker as part of their Loughborough College course.
Four groups of apprentices, studying Electrical Installation, were given an insight into future industry opportunities involving measuring and testing instruments from specialist John Ballance from a company called Measure & Test Instruments.
John spoke of the forthcoming demand for electricians qualified to test Electric Vehicle charging points, as the infrastructure for this new technology is built around the UK.
Demonstrating an EV charging tester, the students got the chance the see how the charging point thinks the test meter is actually an electric vehicle being plugged into it.
Lewis Everton, Second year JTL apprentice, said: “‘The talk by John opened my eyes to the cost effective options for future electricians to capitalise on the growth of electric vehicles.”
John also let our students try out a range of innovative leakage current testers to coincide with Earth Leakage testing being a big part of IET Wiring Regulations 18th Edition requirements for Electrical Installations.
Fellow JTL apprentice, Dylan Curtis, added: “We also got to see a variety of multi-function testers by different manufacturers giving us useful options for when we purchase our own testing equipment.”
John reiterated to apprentices the advantages of having your own test meters as this gives employment opportunities ahead of competitors who are not self-sufficient.
Our students will hear more about the lucrative Electric Vehicle Charging market in a couple of weeks from Liam Walker of ICS (Intelligent Charging systems) who is the next industry specialist talking to our Electrical Installation students as part of an on-going programme organised by the Loughborough branch of City Electrical Factors.