Gippsland New Energy Conference (GNEC) - Speech by Jackie Trad, Clean Energy Council CEO

I would also like to acknowledge Darren McCubbin from the Gippsland Climate Change Network, Mayors Gibson and Hersey from Latrobe and South Gippsland councils, Tom McIntosh MP, Chris Miller CEO of Victoria’s SEC and everyone for being here today.

Before I start, I think it is important we all stop and recognise the extraordinary work of Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s longest-serving Energy Minister, whose passion and commitment to the energy transition have left a lasting mark on this state. We will be sorry to lose that experience and energy from government, but we wish Lily all the very best for what comes next, and I suspect this won’t be the last we hear from her.

Gippsland has powered Victoria for generations. And over the next three years, it will again sit at the centre of the decisions that determine whether Victorians have reliable, affordable and secure electricity.

We are not standing here in an industrial region in decline. It remains one of the most important energy regions in Australia, and its next chapter will matter well beyond the Latrobe Valley.

This morning I want to talk to you about three things. Why extending Yallourn indefinitely is the wrong answer to the right question. Why this region is already building the workforce that the clean energy transition needs. And why getting both of those things right represents one of the biggest economic opportunities in Australia's near-term future.

Now, we need to talk about Yallourn.

Because there is a very real question hanging over Victoria's energy system: what happens when it closes in 2028?

AEMO has flagged potential reliability risks from July that year, the same month Yallourn is scheduled to close. Nobody should dismiss concerns about whether Victoria will have enough reliable power as one of its largest generators leaves the system.

But extending Yallourn is not a simple answer to that problem.

Yallourn is an ageing brown coal power station. Its closure has been scheduled since 2021, giving governments, the market and the energy sector a long runway to prepare for what comes next.

The difficulty is that keeping an ageing coal plant running beyond its planned life does not necessarily buy you reliability. It can introduce new risks.

ENGIE's Laura Caspari knows this better than most. She managed the closure of Hazelwood and has warned about the technical and safety challenges of pushing ageing coal plants beyond their intended operating lives. Older plants become harder to maintain and more vulnerable to unplanned outages. That is problematic when the reason for keeping them open is reliability in the first place.

Across Australia’s coal fleet, unplanned outages are occurring around a quarter of the time. 25% of the electricity we should be seeing from these power stations disappears because of break downs. Imagine if an ambulance failed one in every four call-outs.  We would not debate whether the fleet was getting old. We would replace it.

There is another consequence we need to be careful about.

The energy companies being asked to build the replacement capacity need certainty about when existing generators will leave the system. GE Vernova and Tilt Renewables have both made the point that uncertainty around coal closure dates makes investment decisions harder.

That is the risk in continually pushing back announced closure dates. A short-term extension may look like additional insurance, but if it delays investment in the generation and storage needed to replace that capacity, we can end up making the longer-term reliability challenge harder.

The job for governments and industry is much more practical than just coal is bad or renewables are good. We must make sure enough replacement generation, storage and transmission is built, and built in time, so Victoria can move through Yallourn's closure without compromising reliability or affordability.

And that brings us back to Gippsland.

Three major wind opportunities are now taking shape across Gippsland. Delburn is under construction, Gelliondale has planning approval, and offshore wind in the Bass Strait remains the biggest prize. These are projects with capital behind them, planning approvals being worked through, and communities beginning to think seriously about what the construction and operating phases look like for the local economy.

The next wave of energy investment is a major, multi-decade jobs opportunity for Gippsland, and few regions in Australia are better placed to capture it.

Gippsland already has much of what the next generation of energy projects needs: strong grid connections, industrial land, enormous energy resources on its doorstep and, most importantly, generations of workers who know how to build, operate and maintain major energy infrastructure.

The training infrastructure is being built to turn that experience into the capabilities the next generation of energy projects will need. Gippsland does not need to build an energy industry from scratch. It has spent decades building one. The opportunity now is to make sure the next generation of energy jobs is built here too.

In April, the State and Federal Governments jointly launched the Victorian Renewable Energy TAFE Centre of Excellence at TAFE Gippsland's Morwell campus. $50 million. Training that will cover smart grids and networks, home electrification services, offshore wind simulation using virtual reality technology, and Energy Supply Industry accreditations.

This is physical infrastructure being built in this postcode to train the people who will build and operate the energy system that replaces Yallourn.

People like Matt Tisdale at TAFE Gippsland are already doing that work. He is training a growing number of electrical apprentices while developing new pathways for turbine technicians, blade repair specialists and other skills the wind industry will need.

That is world-class workforce planning, building the skills locally so Gippsland workers are ready when the jobs arrive.

Let me zoom out for a moment, because this is not just a Gippsland story.

The economic opportunity for regional Australia is enormous. The next generation of energy infrastructure will overwhelmingly be built in the regions, bringing billions of dollars of investment into communities that have too often watched jobs, businesses and young people drift towards the capital cities.

We are already seeing what that can mean. In Cooma, major energy investment has helped breathe new life into the town. Shops that were empty are trading again, restaurants are full and a new multi-million-dollar accommodation development is underway. Major projects create demand well beyond the project gate, supporting local builders, accommodation, suppliers, hospitality and small businesses.

Gippsland now has the same opportunity. The building blocks are already taking shape: wind projects approved and under construction, major investment in training and an offshore wind industry beginning to emerge off the coast. Together, they send an important signal to investors that Gippsland has the infrastructure, workforce and confidence to become one of Australia’s major energy regions for decades to come.

It is why I have proposed a Renewable Resources Payment: a simple, legislated payment from renewable projects to the councils that host them, so regional communities like those around Gippsland have a permanent, visible share in the wealth being generated in their backyard and greater control over how that money is spent.

If Australia gets this right, regions like Gippsland will not simply host the infrastructure of the next energy system. They will be among its biggest economic beneficiaries.

The Clean Energy Council represents the businesses building the new energy system. Our members are active in this region -- in planning, in development, in conversations with government and community about what comes next. And we are consistently advocating for three things that are directly relevant to where Gippsland sits right now.

 First, think very carefully about coal closure dates. The certainty that comes from a firm, credible timeline is not a courtesy to the renewables industry. It is a prerequisite for the investment decisions that determine whether the lights stay on after 2028. Reopening that debate does not make the system more secure. It makes the gap harder to fill.

Second, transmission investment has to be synchronised with generation. The decisions on transmission need to stay on the schedule that developers are planning around, not drift to the right every time the political environment gets complicated.

Third, the workforce investment that is happening here needs to be protected and expanded. It is the critical path for the projects. You cannot build this stuff if you do not have turbine technicians and cable specialists and blade repair teams ready to work. The training pipeline for those roles needs to be running now. In Gippsland. Because that is where the industry will be.

The question that got asked in the Financial Review last week -- "where will the energy come from?" -- is the right question. It deserves a serious answer. And the serious answer is not to extend an ageing brown coal plant that its own operators say cannot safely run beyond its closure date.

The serious answer is: from the projects that are approved and in construction in this region right now. From the wind resource, from the batteries being built to firm up that generation. From the transmission links that are under development. And from a workforce that is being trained, right now, in Morwell, to build and operate all of it.

That is the answer. It requires holding our nerve on the settings that make it possible, and it requires the kind of long-term thinking that infrastructure investment always demands.

This region has powered Victoria for generations. It will do it again. Thank you.