Angolas President João Lourenço has visited the Siemens Professional Education training school and the multinationals high-voltage technology plant in Berlin
The presidential entourage also includes energy minister João Baptista Borges, minister of finance, Archer Mangueira, minister of petroleum and natural resources, Diamantino Pedro Azevedo and transport minister Ricardo Abreu among others.
Sérgio Filipe, CEO of Siemens Angola, and Pedro Pires de Miranda, chairman of the Board of Directors of Siemens Angola, were present at Siemens.
“This visit by President João Lourenço to two Siemens worldwide reference centres in the areas of energy and training serves to reinforce the proximity and mutual trust we have been developing,” said Sérgio Filipe, CEO of Siemens Angola, adding that “Siemens has applied its experience and knowledge in Angola, using its solutions in industrial modernisation projects, essential for the growth and diversification of the economy.”
During his visit to Berlin, Lourenço met the dual education model of the Siemens training school. Currently, the first Angolan students are studying in this school under the programme Tech Apprenticeship @ Siemens, focused in the areas of electronics and mechatronics.
The company in Angola has been making a continuous commitment to the training and training of local human resources and, for the past three years, has been selecting young people to attend Siemens Professional Education in Berlin. When they finish the training at this dual school, whose courses last for three and a half years, the students join the Siemens Angola team in Talatona.
Worldwide, Siemens invests US$585.13mn per year in training and retraining. With about 1,300 apprentices and students, Siemens Professional Education in Berlin is one of the largest Siemens centres of its kind in the world.
The Schaltwerk high-voltage switchgear plant, the largest of its kind in the world, covers an area of 330,000 sq m and Siemens develops GIS 1 technology, for example, installed in the Chicala substation. It is recalled that Siemens was responsible for the construction, in turn, of this substation of EDEL, located near the bay of Luanda.
This important work has contributed significantly to increase the efficiency and reliability in the management of electricity distribution to the Angolan capital. In this project, an isolated gas solution (GIS) was used, which substantially reduces the required installation area and the visual and environmental impact of this infrastructure.
In this modern industrial unit, in addition to the GIS equipment, the air-insulated high voltage circuit breakers and the medium voltage circuit breakers that the multinational has already installed a little around the world are also manufactured.
