STANDARDS · GWO
Every GWO certificate, tracked to its expiry
Keep each technician's GWO certificates on their record, with an alert before any refresher is due.
No credit card required.
What is GWO, and why does it matter?
GWO, the Global Wind Organisation, is the wind industry's own safety and training standards body. Its core qualification, Basic Safety Training (BST), covers five modules: First Aid, Manual Handling, Fire Awareness and Working at Height for every technician, plus Sea Survival for offshore roles. Each carries its own 24-month certificate, renewed through a shorter refresher course before it lapses.
GWO doesn't have statutory authority. It's an industry-run standard, the same relationship IRATA has to its own code of practice, not a government regulation like LOLER or PUWER. What GWO certification means is a technician has been trained and assessed to a standard the whole wind industry recognises, at a GWO-accredited training provider.
Papertrail tracks every technician's GWO certificates against their Staff Competency record, with an alert before any of them lapse.
- What it is
- the wind industry's own safety and training standards body
- Legal status
- an industry-run standard
- Credential
- Basic Safety Training (BST)
What a GWO certificate record contains
Each technician's record can hold the details a GWO certificate needs: identity (which BST module, the training provider), history (issue date, every renewal) and status (the 24-month expiry, the next-due date), all on the technician's own record from day one.
Every renewal logs against that same record too, so answering "is this person still in date" is one search away, not a chase through five different training providers' paperwork.
No credit card required.
GWO status, tracked to the day
Certificates
BST and BTT certificates each carry their own expiry date on the technician's record, so an auditor asking whether someone was in date gets one answer, not paperwork from several different training providers.
Schedule Manager
Every certificate's renewal clock runs on its own frequency, with an alert before it lapses.
Certificate History
Every certificate, past and current, stays on the record. Export the full history whenever an auditor or a client asks for evidence.
Certificates
BST and BTT certificates each carry their own expiry date on the technician's record, so an auditor asking whether someone was in date gets one answer, not paperwork from several different training providers.
Schedule Manager
Every certificate's renewal clock runs on its own frequency, with an alert before it lapses.
Certificate History
Every certificate, past and current, stays on the record. Export the full history whenever an auditor or a client asks for evidence.
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Who this applies to
Wind operators and turbine owners, tracking every technician and contractor's GWO status before they're signed off to work.
Training providers and contractors, evidencing who on their team is currently certified when a client or site operator asks.
Frequently asked questions
How long is a GWO Basic Safety Training certificate valid for?
24 months. A refresher course renews it before it expires; if it's allowed to lapse, the full course has to be retaken instead of the shorter refresher.
Does GWO cover offshore wind specifically?
Sea Survival is the one BST module that's offshore-specific. The other four, First Aid, Manual Handling, Fire Awareness and Working at Height, apply to onshore and offshore technicians alike.
Is GWO a government regulation, like LOLER or PUWER?
No. GWO is an industry standards body: it sets and publishes its own training standard, the same relationship IRATA has to its own code of practice. LOLER and PUWER are UK statutory instruments enforced by HSE. Papertrail can track both: GWO certificates on each technician's record, and LOLER and PUWER inspections on the equipment.
Does Papertrail support GWO records out of the box?
Yes. Every technician's GWO certificates sit on their own record with an alert before any of them lapse, the same mechanism that runs Papertrail's wider Staff Competency module.
Every technician's GWO status, in one place
Book a demo and we'll walk through it with your own technicians' certificates, or start for free and add your first technician.
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Last reviewed on . MJB.