From coal mine to battery giga-factory: Two tales of transition from the Hunter

Nathan Berryman, 31, grew up in the Newcastle region and went straight from high school into an apprenticeship with an underground coal mining company, where he worked for seven years.

“We’re digging stuff out of the ground to boil water to create steam to run a turbine, it’s ancient technology,” he says. “So I’m like, we can be doing better, you know. We’ve got an endless source of energy above us that’s the sun… I just think it’s the way to go. I’m a big believer in it.”

Berryman now works at Australia’s first giga-scale battery manufacturer, the appropriately named Energy Renaissance, alongside Kristal Bartlett, 33, another local who did her electrical apprenticeship at the nearby aluminium smelter and worked for years in heavy industry.

“It’s essentially the way of the future,” Bartlett says of her new industry. “It’s going to be a huge, booming business in you know, a few years time. Yeah, and it’s different, something different to what I’ve already done.”

They are just two examples of “green shoots” of new industry breaking through the tough, untilled ground in major industrial areas based around the coal centres in the Hunter, and other areas across the country, and which have become lightning rods in the current election.

In 2020, an Environment Victoria survey found an overwhelming majority of people polled in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley and the Hunter wanted state and federal governments to urgently step up and support coal communities and industries to transition to clean energy.

But, two years later and one day out from a federal election, there is little evidence that much has been done to answer the call. The green energy jobs are said to be there, in their hundreds of thousands, but the path through the inevitably difficult transition is not well marked.

Australia’s two major parties steadfastly refuse to set firm dates for the phase-out of coal power in Australia, which makes it inherently difficult make any meaningful plans for most workers like Berryman and Bartlett.

Berryman, who also studied engineering at TAFE, left the coal mine to seek work in a less physically dangerous and more environmentally progressive field. But he describes that transition as “extremely difficult.”

“In my own experience, I felt like I had no support, or no way of figuring out how to change, you know, to go into a different sector,” he tells RenewEconomy.

“There was a factor that there were limited positions at the time, but it was… probably more because my skill sets were so narrow in what was required in the underground setting.

“Those skills and that knowledge is very difficult to apply to other parts of the electrical industry.”

It took Berryman to leave Australia and try his hand in a range of more generalist roles in the UK, including 12 months heading up electrical maintenance at Wimbledon, to build back confidence in his skills.

When Covid brought him back to NSW, the opportunity to apply for a job at Australia’s first giga-scale battery manufacturing facility came up, and it came up right on his own home turf.

The solar powered Renaissance One plant in the industrial Newcastle suburb of Tomago – near the huge aluminium smelter – will produce Australian made semi-solid state lithium-ion batteries; “super tough” hot climate batteries targeting commercial energy storage and use in heavy transport.

At this stage, a small but growing team of workers has been based out of a temporary production facility while the finishing touches are made to the giga-factory, which is expected to start commercial production by October this year.

It’s been a long and tough road to get to this point. In particular, Energy Renaissance founder and development director Brian Craighead says the company has been “spectacularly unsuccessful” at getting support from government, in any measure.

On the flip-side, however, Craighead says he’s been “humbled” by the support the company has received from locals and businesses.

And he’s been impressed by how well the recruitment process has gone, in an area where so many – like Nathan Berryman – are crossing over from the coal industry.

“It’s a massive leap of faith that takes a lot of courage, so I can understand people’s resistance to wanting to do that.

“I don’t think there’s a massive resistance to [moving] into renewables, but there has to be that certainty… to say, if you come over here and start working in this, you’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna have a job, you’re gonna be able to pay your mortgage and have a good future.”

Bartlett was employed last October at Energy Renaissance and works alongside Berryman in the manufacturing and commissioning of battery systems.

“I’ve …always been chasing knowledge, I suppose. So this was a really good opportunity for me to learn – and I’ve been doing a lot of learning over these past few months,” she says.

“It’s been really good here so far …we’ve been working closely with engineers and upper management and there’s been a lot of transfer of knowledge, which is which is really good to see.

“And it does feel good to be part of the solution. Because if you’re not actively making any change, what are you doing? So it feels good to be here and to be working towards that end goal.”

Bartlett says that while there has been some “push-back” from Hunter region communities against seemingly far-away notions of a clean energy transition and promises of new industry and jobs, change was slowing seeping through.

“People obviously get set in their ways and their way is what works for now. So, yeah, there’s been a lot of push-back in the past. But, you know, a lot of organisations are now … opening that door and hoping to bring on more sustainable solutions,” she told RenewEconomy.

“I definitely think that a lot of people are worried about losing their jobs, because we are so reliant on on the coal industry here in Newcastle.

“You know, like, there aren’t many industries here that [coal mine and plant closures] wouldn’t affect… I definitely think people are scared about losing their jobs… and that is driving that push back.

“But with the transition there also comes opportunity, so I think it’s probably a good option to sort of just educate everyone and you know, then they might be more open to that change.”

Berryman believes that taking a job at Energy Renaissance has been a positive step for his own future security,

“It’s an emerging sector, so, in terms of my my career and my job security I felt like it was a good direction to take, because it’s only … going to get bigger and more important,” he told RenewEconomy

“But I’m also… the kind of person, I have to care about what I’m doing. So I actually care about the potential impact [Energy Renaissance] can make. I think that’s a big motivating factor for me.

“I often reflect back on when I was underground, I always had this sort of perspective where I’m like, this isn’t the best thing to do.

And having that belief that batteries will play a vital role in Australia’s future renewable energy ecosystem has turned out to be an asset.

“We always go for believers,” Craighead told RenewEconomy about the company’s recruitment process, in a separate interview last week. “It’s hard to get job at Energy Renaissance, but when they get a job, they’re great.”