grid – Michmutters

The renewables industry has exploded in Victoria, with ambitious energy targets set by the state government and an abundance of job opportunities in the fledgling sector to be realised.

Gippsland, in south-eastern Victoria, has been touted as the golden child of the renewable energy industry.

The region has windy seas, extensive land resources, and existing grid infrastructure in the Latrobe Valley thanks to its coal mining legacy.

Thousands of jobs are set to be created during both construction and operational phases in the switch to renewable energies.

But in a job market crying out for people to fill 86,000 vacancies in rural and regional Australia, doubt remains on the ability to fill roles in the new industry.

In Australia, the labor force participation rate sits at 67 per cent, while in Gippsland, the rate is lower, varying between local government areas.

training gap

A recent renewable energy conference held in the region attracted interest overseas and nationwide interest.

Bernadette O’Connor, of Australian Renewables Academy (ARA), heads up a local organization tasked with training the workforce needed to work on renewables.

Ms O’Connor said mediocre participation rates should be seen as an opportunity to bring more people into the workforce.

The group has intentions to retrain skilled workers in the move away from the coal, oil and gas industries.

“We need to look at who’s existing in the sector to transition across to the renewable energy industry,” Ms O’Connor said.

“[We look at] what level and what skills. Who is not in the sector, but could be in the sector, because they’ve got skills that could transition.”

bernadette o'connor — Australian Renewables Academy director Bernadette O’Connor presenting at the the Gippsland New Energy Conference.(Supplied)

The federally funded ARA identifies entry level jobs and determines which people could be recruited with basic training.

Given offshore wind is in its infancy in Australia, skills and knowledge to train the workforce in the new technology will likely come from overseas initially.

Ms O’Connor said the industry was evolving at a fast pace, and communication around the sector’s resourcing needs was imperative.

“If we can have really good teachers who know how to teach and know how to facilitate learning, partnering with industry who know what the industry needs, then that would be the ideal scenario,” Ms O’Connor said.

Shift in thinking

Historically, the offshore oil and gas industry in Gippsland has attracted fly-in fly-out workers from across the country, but the number of interstate workers have dropped in the past few years, according to unions.

As offshore assets have been sold off or decommissioned in Bass Strait, FIFO workers have needed to look elsewhere.

In 2017 when the Hazelwood Power Station closed, 700 Latrobe Valley workers were left without jobs. At the time, it was suggested the lucrative roles often brought more than $100,000 into the household budget.

When it was operational, Hazelwood fed 1.65 gigawatts (GW) into the grid.

The Star of the South offshore wind project will alone generate 2.2GW.

After Hazelwood’s closure, there was little talk of renewable projects setting up in the region to take advantage of existing grid infrastructure.

Victoria bets big on offshore wind

For years, community groups and environmentalists have touted the potential for renewables in Gippsland, but efforts were dampened when the former state government’s investment in private companies attempting to find clean ways to use coal came up empty handed.

Five years on, hundreds descended on the Gippsland New Energy Conference last week, a forum to present pipeline projects and investment opportunities in renewables.

At a packed theater in Sale, Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio received an enthusiastic response when she spoke of the state’s ambitious targets.

They include supplying 13GW of offshore to the energy grid by 2050 and for the state to produce 50 per cent of its power from renewables by 2050.

While offshore wind drew the most buzz, solar was also a key player, with eight solar farms in the pipeline or operational across the region.

community concerns

However, renewable projects were not entirely met with open arms.

Friends of Nooramunga Coastal Reserve did not want turbines along the “pristine” coastline, while farmers in Giffard did not want above-ground pylons erected on their land.

Fishers are also concerned about not being able to use waters in the construction phase of offshore wind farms and said they needed to be compensated.

A panel which discussed how renewable energy companies should engage with communities affected by infrastructure put forward that communities should be provided with clear information that would indicate which aspects communities could and couldn’t have influence over.

Woodside farmer Rosemary Irving fought against the Bass Link in the early 2000s.

She told the ABC she wouldn’t be overly happy to have underground cables through her property, but preferred them over the above-ground pylons expected to be built by Ausnet Services.

“If we’ve got to have renewable energy the best practice to date is to have the turbines out to sea and the cables underground, which causes no disturbance to anybody,” Ms Irving said.

“It’s not fair for landholders to have overhead cables.”

Energy sector ‘exploding’

At this stage, Star of the South has committed to underground cabling while other proponents have not, while Ausnet Services would construct the transmission lines.

It has not yet committed to whether they will be above or below-ground, but underground cables are much more expensive.

Offshore wind farms in Gippsland will include turbines standing at 196 metres, drilled and grafted into the seabed.

Flotation Energy plans to build the 1.5GW Seadragon project off the Gippsland Coast.

Flotation’s chief operating officer Tim Sawyer said Seadragon’s location was closest to Exxon Mobil’s offshore assets.

He said it was chosen in hope of using existing or decommissioned platforms, the Barry’s Beach terminal and other infrastructure.

“We can potentially reuse some of those assets whether that is a platform itself for a substation, whether that is shore crossings, easements for existing pipelines,” Mr Sawyer said.

“We can potentially reroute electrical cables along existing easements to reduce some of that disturbance.

“But it also extends to personnel that may be transitioning out of the oil and gas industry and retraining.”

The construction stage alone for Seadragon is estimated to employ 1,000 workers, while up to 250 jobs will be ongoing in operational maintenance.

Businesses encouraged to take part

During the event in Sale, Ms D’Ambrosio encouraged local businesses hoping to get into the sector to register with the Industry Capability Network.

She said her department was in the process of mapping out the supply chain.

The first offshore wind project set to be up and running is the Star of the South, which aims to feed power into the grid by 2028.

That’s the same year Energy Australia’s Yallourn Power Station in the Latrobe Valley is due to close.

As part of its decommissioning agreement, Energy Australia is required to build a 350 megawatt (MW) battery at the site to store surplus energy.

AGL, which runs the nearby Loy Yang A power station has plans to build 200MW battery.

Gippsland Climate Change Network chairman Darren McCubbin, who described the sector as exploding, organized the event.

He praised the state government’s targets and acknowledged protesters, encouraging business to take notice of the community throughout consultation periods.

“These are once-in-a-lifetime alterations to our infrastructure… There are going to be enormous challenges with that, there are clearly communities concerned about it.

“It will be a much more abundant and cheap electricity.”

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