Patwardhan et al. (2012) contrasts Australia’s initial slow adoption of on-grid (i.e. large-scale) renewable energy with the experiences in Germany and Japan. The regulations, government incentives and strong industrial environments in these countries assisted these technologies to become mainstream. The authors emphasise that such studies highlight the importance of integrated energy, industrial and technology policies to achieve a rapid transition. The need to focus on more than just technical skills is also corroborated by a survey of more than 300 executives on moving organisational energy use to 100 per cent renewables (Deloitte, 2019). It found that while a workforce with the required technical skills was seen
as very important, other ecosystem factors such as policy or regulatory changes, availability of new or additional finance sources and structures, and simpler contracts or markets were seen as even more important. The rapid review undertaken for this project highlighted a range of clean energy transition barriers and facilitators. Skills and training are one area of focus, but there are other areas that need to be addressed, including the business, technology, community and cross-sectoral areas. A summary of the findings on barriers and facilitators is presented in Table 11.
Table 11. Summary of barriers and facilitators of a clean energy transition CATEGORY
BARRIERS
FACILITATORS
Business-related
•
Lack of business models
•
Perceptions of being beneficial/ good investments
•
Difficult to quantify financials
•
Limited financial resources
•
Emerging technologies
•
•
Infrastructure changes
Government support, especially at the municipal level
•
Operational changes Skill/ workforce deficiencies
•
University training does not reflect skill/ workforce needs
Courses with high industry interface, practical and problem-solving content
•
Continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities from industry
Technology / infrastructure
Skills and training • •
Community & cross-sectoral
•
Poor consensus & coordination between tertiary institutions
•
Low citizen involvement
•
Perceptions of being beneficial
•
Low trust between parties
•
High awareness
•
Lack of ambition
•
Shared commitment
•
Lack of knowledge
•
Good stakeholder cooperation
•
Power imbalances
A focus on technical skills requirements and shortages alone is thus not sufficient to enable a successful clean energy transition. Skills to enable changes in governance, business model and consumer behaviour alongside the implementation of new technologies are crucial. Social or cross-cutting skills are particularly important to make the case for change, and to foster collaboration between various trades, industries and
other stakeholder groups that might not have conventionally worked together. The importance of a socio-technical approach is also explored in the context of innovation pathways in Work Package 3 – see Section 6.5.2. Training and professional development programs to ensure adequate skills
E3 Opportunity Assessment: Developing the future energy workforce
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