Engaging globally in building local New Energy workforces - the world is round did you know!

I am sitting in a darkened plane winging my way back to Australia (contributing to global carbon emissions) after a seven-week trip that included family in India, friends in Scotland, new partners in Copenhagen, an unplanned side trip to Wind Europe in Bilbao and reconnection post Covid with colleagues from UNESCO’s Learning Cities in Limerick and Cork.

Since our Empower Australia Forum in November 2023, the Australian Renewables Academy (ARA) has been engaging with the Danish Renewable Energy Construction Academy (RECOA) in discussions about how we can collaborate to grow the skills of the emerging new energy industry.

This trip provided me with the opportunity to head up to Copenhagen to sign a Statement of Intent pledging us to work together in the provision of professional skills development, initially for the wind industry sector and in the coming years for other new energy sectors. By partnering with RECOA, ARA can bring North Sea and Taiwanese wind industry expertise and skills to Australia.

Whilst in Copenhagen, it was suggested I attend Wind Europe, the premier Wind Industry specific conference in Bilbao, Spain.

Over two and a half days I took the opportunity to look and listen (hard for any of you reading this who know me to believe I am sure) and reflect on what the near and medium-term future looks like for the industry globally as well as in Australia.

Primarily, my key takeaways are:

The flat earth approach to energy production is of the past. The world is indeed round, as evidenced by the obvious presence of “big global money” sponsoring, engaging in and facilitating the conference. These are the companies traditionally involved in ‘dig it up and burn it” energy production which have, to be fair, enabled those of us living in western countries to experience high standards of living and enormous opportunities in the centuries since the industrial revolution.

The obvious presence of these companies is a sign of the changing nature and state of the energy economy. No longer is renewable energy a small side industry trying to argue for a seat at the energy table, it is now main game.

Secondly, whilst Australia lost a decade or more in moving to a renewable energy future, with respect to systematically creating a workforce with the skills to expand new energy production globally across a diversity of sectors, we are all at the beginning.

My colleagues in Denmark and other conference delegates I spoke with described this as a function of being an industry having to establish and grow in an environment where the education, skills and learning systems and structures at country and international levels have been geared towards creating careers for the workforce of the large old energy industries. Countries are now trying to retrofit and/or shift their systems to cater for the actual and predicted workforce needs of new energy and this is painful for all and takes time.

Industry is looking for nimble, adaptive, creative, fluid learning and development companies to guarantee skills in the volume needed to fill the 2030 goals of governments across the world.

And thirdly, I travelled to the other side of the world to discover some of our finest local Gippsland citizens also enjoying the Wind Europe conference.

Outside the conference, no one can go to Bilbao without popping into the Guggenheim and experiencing fabulous and arresting modern art installations. In a very odd way, I felt a red earth connection to the maze of rusting steel structures that leaned in and out, this way and that, almost in response to an invisible and impossibly relentless wind. You’ll be pleased to know I resisted the urge to smell and lick them, but I confess to a temptation.

Back in England and Scotland, where wind and solar are obvious on land and off the coast, radio discussion was exploring the relationship between food production and food security and the use of fertile arable land for new energy installations. Whilst Australia has a lot (a technical term for many square kilometres) of land not being used in food production, the land we have closest to the grid and, therefore, more viable for on-land energy production is our arable food producing land.

?The challenge for us is to be supporting food production and energy industries and governments to engage in mature reasoned conversations about what food production will look like over the coming half century and how the two industries not just co-exist but co-produce to the benefit of Australia and other countries in our region.

Finally, my thanks to Limerick Learning City and Cork Learning City for hosting me in the last days of my travels. It was fabulous to catch up with colleagues I haven’t seen in person since the pre-Covid UNESCO Learning Cities Conference in Meddellin in Columbia, and my thanks to the Learning Community team at Wyndham City Council for reconnecting me.

In Limerick we discussed the critical importance of learning communities in connecting local people with lifelong learning whether formal or informal, accredited or non-accredited. We agreed to broaden our relationship to include sharing information and learning in relation to the development of our respective new energy industries.

In Cork I had the honour to attend the launch of the Cork Learning Festival, joining delegations from France, Holland, Thailand, USA, Northern Ireland and across the Republic of Ireland in celebrating learning in Cork.

A special highlight of the festival for me, and a wonderful way to bring my trip to an end, was to walk out to Tory Top Library for the No Longer Forgotten – Cork Women of the Revolution poster exhibition, a recognition of the women who played critical roles in the success of the Irish revolution 100 years ago. It was topped off by an enthusiastic conversation with a little 4.5-year-old who wanted to know what I was doing, where I came from and what I was reading. She helped me with the reading of course. A lovely reminder that when our New Energy industry is beginning to hit its straps in 12 to 15 years’ time, this bright little girl will be exiting school and ready to choose her first career – will we be ready for her and her friends?

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Bernadette O’Connor

Executive Director, Management Governance Australia

CEO, Workforce Plus

President, Australian Renewable Academy

Executive Chair, DEC Housing