EnergyAustralia has announced plans to help coal plant workers transition from jobs at its Yallourn power station – due to retire in 2028 – to the Elanora Offshore wind farm project, proposed for off the coast of Victoria.
The 5GW Elanora offshore wind farm is one of a number of projects vying for a spot in Australia’s first offshore development zone, in waters off Gippsland.
The purpose-built company behind the project, the Elanora Offshore consortium, is backed by five companies, including the Hong Kong owned Australian gentailer, EnergyAustralia.
EnergyAustralia announced its foray into the nascent renewables segment in August, as part of the consortium alongside offshore wind specialists Kima Energy and Boskalis.
The proposed Elanora project has promised to create more than 3000 jobs during the construction phase and 320 jobs during operations.
Meanwhile, the closure of EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn power station in mid-2028 will leave around 500 workers looking for employment in the Gippsland region.
“There’s been a lot of work done about matching the skill set in our coal fired power stations to the offshore wind sector,” Lisa Gooding, EnergyAustralia’s Head of the Yallourn Transition told RenewEconomy.
“There is a high correlation with [The Yallourn workforce and] the civil construction works that are required in the construction phase of offshore wind.”
Although the plan is banking on Elanora Offshore securing a Feasibility Licence, EnergyAustralia’s Job Upskilling and Matching Program (JUMP) aims to help Yallourn workers on a new employment path.
Currently 21 employees have put working at a wind farm as their first preference for jobs once Yallourn is closed, but Gooding suggests that this will likely increase once employees have been given more information about the roles available and the nature of the jobs.
JUMP is part of a larger $10 million dollar transition program for Yallourn workers.
“We’ve got people at the moment training to be a nurse, people training to become a primary school teacher, someone who’s actually completing a master’s in communications,” said Gooding.
“Today’s announcement with JUMP is trying to go one step further. Let’s try and line up with a new sector that’s coming into the region and give line-of-sight to the Yallourn workers about the roles that are coming online … and give them time to prepare and retrain if they want to take up those roles.
“As Elanora needs to recruit for jobs and even ahead of time, they will be providing those roles and a description of those roles to the Yallourn workforce to give them early indication of the roles that are needed,” said Gooding.
“Yallourn workers can nominate for those roles or talk to the wind specialists about whether it’s the right fit for them, and then understand the training they might need to do in order to move to those roles.
“There’s probably some cases where no training is really needed at all but there’ll be other cases where some training will be required.”
Yallourn Power station currently provides 22% of Victoria’s electricity, and 8% of the National Electricity Market using brown coal. It is also Australia’s second-largest open cut mine.
In 2021 EnergyAustralia announced that it would close four years earlier than expected, in 2028. There has been a number of issues in the aging plant in the last few years, and it recently started progressively turning off each of it’s four coal generator units for repairs to ensure they’ll last until the plant closes.
EnergyAustralia is also currently building a 350MW big battery project scheduled to be up and running by 2026 nearby in Jeeralang in the Latrobe Valley.
