Employment

A survey run by the Clean Energy Council shows confidence in new clean energy investment continued to weaken over the past six months. While a big majority of industry representatives expect to hire more staff in the next 12 months, the biggest challenges to developing new projects remain unchanged with grid connection process and technical requirements and policy uncertainty at the top of their list of concerns.

Under the Electricity Strategy released on Friday, the NSW Government has unveiled a plan to deliver Australia’s first coordinated Renewable Energy Zone in the Central-West, seeking to support the new generation needed to get energy bills down. The administration has also pledged to give NSW one of the world’s highest reliability targets to cope with the changing electricity mix and unexpected generator outages.

As part of the Andrews Government’s compromise with solar industry protestors after the initial dog’s breakfast of a Solar Homes program, Solar Victoria has established the Industry and Consumer Reference Group (ICRG).

New analysis from recruitment firm Robert Walters shows continued growth in the renewables sector is bringing continued growth in wages along with it.

Elon Musk has promised a fab near Berlin that will help create up to 10,000 new jobs. Tesla wants to build the facility near the city’s controversial new BER airport.

The Clean Energy Council (CEC) has released an extensive report on the benefit of sharing options for renewable energy projects. In addition to highlighting the benefits of sharing for both project proponents and local communities, the report provides pathways to models of benefit sharing.

The Clean Energy Council and Monash Business School have combined forces to provide an educational scholarship for women in the renewable energy industry looking to better their negotiation and public speaking skills. The grant looks to help drive gender diversification in leadership positions in the renewable energy industry. 

The first rows of solar panels have been laid on the roof of the Main Assembly Building at Tonsley Innovation District. The 2.34 MW solar array will ultimately work in conjunction with on-site battery storage and smart technologies as part of South Australia’s first district energy scheme.

With sun the common component of solar energy production and agriculture, a new company in northern NSW is set to combine the benefits of sowing PV and forage crops in the same soil.

Plans to develop an 18 GWh lithium-ion battery factory in northern Queensland have reached an important milestone with the project feasibility study submitted to the Queensland government.