Centre for Electrical Technologies

Premier Russell MacLellan today announced a partnership between the Nova Scotia Community College and the province to build Canada's only simulated hazardous-area training facility.

The new facility, housed at the Institute of Technology Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College, will be modelled after Aberdeen Skills and Enterprise Training Ltd. (ASET) of Aberdeen College in Scotland. ASET is a unique custom-built resource that offers internationally recognized competence-based training and assessment for electrical and instrumentation technicians working in hazardous areas in offshore and onshore industrial situations. Ex training, as it is called, provides safety training for those involved in installation and maintenance of electrical equipment in hazardous and potential explosive environments.

The new facility will be called the Atlantic Canada Centre for Electrical Technologies and will be the only one of its kind in Canada. Renovations to the Institute of Technology Campus in Halifax will be carried out through the winter, and the school will admit its first students by the spring of 1999. Initially in support of the Sable Offshore Energy Project, the centre expects to train 200 students the first year. Programs run from one to five days.

"The government is investing $1.2 million in the Nova Scotia Community College to establish the Atlantic Canada Centre for Electrical Technologies at the Institute of Technology Campus," said Premier MacLellan. "This facility will offer graduates the same training, qualifications and high level of competence as their counterparts in the oil and gas fields of the North Sea."

The Nova Scotia Community College has partnered with ASET in the development of the facility as well as curriculum. "ASET has a nationally recognized program," said Jack Buckley, president of the community college. "We are looking forward to working with our colleagues from Scotland in developing a truly unique training opportunity for Nova Scotians. These programs will offer greater opportunities to our skilled technicians and technologists both offshore and onshore."

The development of this facility will satisfy the need for this type of training in the Atlantic provinces and will affect training in the petrochemical, mining, pharmaceutical and distillery industries throughout North America.