Ahead of the National Jobs and Skills Summit, the Clean Energy Council released a new report: Skilling the Energy Transition which made six recommendations to fix the skills and labour challenges that could throttle the success of Australia’s renewable energy transition.
The 2022 ISP outlines the case for building 141 GW of large-scale wind and solar capacity, 63 GW of storage and hydro capacity, and 69 GW of small-scale solar and household batteries needed by 2050 to maintain reliability and keep prices down. This represents a ninefold increase in large-scale renewable generation installed in the National Electricity Market and a fivefold increase in small-scale generation.
Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said delivering this transformation will require an enormous number of workers – according to Reputex’s modelling of the ALP’s Powering Australia policy platform, there could be 604,000 additional direct and indirect jobs created by 2030.
“This presents an enormous opportunity but comes at a time where the existing modest workforce of 30,000 is riddled with challenges, gaps, and unmet demand from industry,” said Thornton.
By 2035, 75 per cent of clean energy jobs could be in regional Australia with the right policy settings. Additionally, while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians make up over 3 per cent of the population, they comprise just 0.8 per cent of the current clean energy workforce. The clean energy industry wants to put its best foot forward through genuine collaboration with First Nations communities, which means sharing the benefits of clean energy through sustainable and equitable practice and protecting an ancient culture.
While female representation (39 per cent) in the clean energy sector is ahead of that in oil and gas (23 per cent) and coal (16 per cent), they are overrepresented in administration roles (over 60 per cent) and under-represented in senior management roles (32 per cent) and at board level (19 per cent).
“Addressing current and growing labour shortages and skills gaps requires a genuine collaboration between governments, community, agencies and development bodies, the education sector, and the clean energy industry,” said Thornton.
The six recommendations from Clean Energy Council’s new report were:
- Calibrate higher education to meet clean energy industries’ interests.
- Anticipate clean energy workforce needs.
- Raise the profile of working in clean energy as an opportunity for all Australians.
- Establish a Transition Authority.
- Enhance the Vocational Education and Training Sector’s capacity to understand and meet the demands of industry.
- Raise the international profile of Australia and support increased transfer of international skills and capacity, so Australia becomes a global centre of clean energy expertise.
At the National Jobs and Skills Summit held in Canberra this week, the clean energy sector received strong support for the majority of its recommendations for a more robust clean energy workforce.
Mr Thornton said the summit recognised the extraordinary opportunity for Australia to create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs across regional Australia.
“With a strong spirit of positivity and collaboration, the outcomes from the summit represent major progress in developing the workforce necessary to ensure Australia becomes a global clean energy superpower.”
Some of the critical areas of agreement from the Summit of importance to the clean energy sector include:
- Commitment to reform of the VET and University sectors and recognition of the importance of our tertiary education system to developing our future workforce. This was complemented by a $1.1 billion training blitz providing 180,000 additional free TAFE places from the state, territory and Federal Governments.
- A commitment for governments to play a stronger role in the transition of key communities across Australia, with a more coordinated and active approach to those fossil-fuel-based communities in transition, reskilling and cross-skilling workers and creating new regional economic opportunities.
- A strong recognition of the challenges and opportunities facing women and First Nations people participating in the clean energy revolution. Many of the agreed reforms to address this opportunity can significantly impact the role and opportunity for women and First Nations people in the clean energy workforce.
- Increase in permanent migration and reforms to our visa system to attract a global workforce and students to support our vision for Australia to become a global centre of excellence.
