I N DUST RY INS IGH TS
ADDRESSING SKILLS SHORTAGES IN THE CLEAN ENERGY INDUSTRY By Mikayla Bridge, Editor, Utility Magazine
The Clean Energy Council (CEC) has released a new report, Skilling the Energy Transition, which makes six recommendations to fix the skills and labour challenges that could endanger the success of Australia’s clean energy transition. Utility spoke to Dr Anita Talberg, CEC’s Policy Director for Workforce Development, to explore her recommended solutions to the current skills shortage.
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he CEC report, published ahead of the Job and Skills Summit in early September 2022, explored the different ways that businesses and governments can improve worker access to clean energy jobs. The report’s six recommendations lay out the major barriers that limit the pool of talent entering the industry. CEC’s six recommendations include: 1. Calibrating higher education to meet the needs of clean energy interests 2. Anticipating the future needs for the clean energy workforce 3. Raising the profile of the clean energy sector as an opportunity for all Australians 4. Establishing an authority to manage the clean energy transition 5. Enhancing the Vocational Education and Training Sector’s capacity to understand and meet the demands of industry 6. Establishing Australia’s reputation abroad as a global centre for clean energy expertise Dr Talberg leads the Clean Energy Council’s Skills and Training Directorate, a group designed to bring CEC members together and address challenges around skills and training, as well as other issues that resonate across the whole sector. “Essentially, what I'm trying to do is make sure that we have the workforce to support the continued and accelerated growth of renewable energy in Australia. That can present lots of different facets, but at the core of it, we really need the headcount. We need the right number of people with the right skills in the right place at the right time. It's not rocket science,” Dr Talberg said.
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This approach formed the basis of the Skilling the Energy Transition report. Targeted at businesses and government bodies, the report aims to answer the question of how we ensure that the industry has the talent needed to carry out its development plans over the next five to ten years.
MAJOR CHALLENGES AND PRESSURES WITHIN THE INDUSTRY Dr Talberg consulted with CEC members to understand the greatest challenges facing the current workforce and the impact these pressures can have on the future of the clean energy industry. From these discussions, it became clear that many of the industry’s in-demand skills can come from not just one discipline, but a range. “As it becomes more difficult to source a role, you start to become a bit more creative about how you do that. So, you might start thinking about tangential skills or other people that could be cross-skilled, or different ways of bringing people in through what types of pathways exist. Bringing all of that information together is really helpful in starting to understand what the skills shortage is, in which areas,” Dr Talberg said. Though some in-demand roles require specific training, such as power systems engineers, the majority of roles require skills that exist in various other industries. This includes electricians, general technicians, mechanical and electrical tradespeople and other trades roles that support the industry. “A lot of people don't realise that we already have three times the number of people working in clean energy, rather than coal-sourced electricity. For domestic thermal coal – the WWW.UTILITYMAGAZINE.COM.AU