February 8, 2010

SASKENERGY TECHNICAL TRAINING CENTRE

The training centre has a series of older boilers for training.

Mechanical contracting

Saskatchewan gets new natural gas trades training centre

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

A new natural gas trades training centre has been established through a unique partnership between the Mechanical Contractors Association of Saskatchewan (MCAS) and SaskEnergy.

“As far as I know we have the only partnership in Canada between a mechanical contractors association and a natural gas utility”, said Karel Larson, SaskEnergy technical training co-ordinator.

“So, this is the first training facility of its type in Canada.”

The SaskEnergy Technical Training Centre in Saskatoon will provide training to the natural gas provider and the private sector.

“We had an old building and now we have a state-of–the art training facility,” said Larson.

The MCAS donated the heating and ventilation system, which will be used for training.

“We also have old equipment for the purposes of training employees who work for our 24 hour call out service,” Larson said.

This centre has a lab and classrooms like other training facilities.

But, the most unique feature is that the mechanical equipment is exposed to provide students with fully functioning learning models.

Another unique feature is a room full of rubber chips made from recycled tires that is used to simulate underground line hits.

The room has a manifold that can be hooked up to different size lines. They are filled with air and punctured, so the students learn to do a repair.

The training also covers service technicians, maintenance technicians, utility operators, district mechanic operators, instruments technicians, control technicians and construction workers.

Some of these trades go to a technical school for training, but will learn about things that are unique to SaskEnergy at the facility.

According to Mona Spence, MCAS training co-ordinator, the loading facility will also be used by a local company to train employees on a line of new furnaces.

The loading bay will be used so the furnaces have adequate ventilation.

SaskEnergy invested $1.4 million to redevelop one of its current buildings and install new insulation, windows and training equipment, including a new condensing boiler, high efficiency furnaces and air conditioning units.

The MCAS provided mechanical contracting services as well as consulting.

“A laboratory with innovative technical equipment suitable to all users will help to meet the demographic training challenges our industry faces in Saskatchewan,” said Allan Awrey, president of the MCAS.

“It opens the door to change and innovation, which are critical to the future success of the Mechanical Contracting industry.”

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