Analysing Workforce Implications of Renewable Energy Projects in Queensland

There is rapid growth of renewable energy projects across Queensland to add to energy production from coal-fired power stations and potentially replace them in the future. While employment impacts matter to regional communities, predicting the changes in regional employment is challenging because of uncertainty about which renewable projects will proceed, potential variations between labour requirements for large-scale wind and solar projects, and the additional capacity required for renewable sources to provide reliable supply. In this study, the direct workforce requirements for existing and proposed renewable generation projects in Queensland have been assembled, and the workforce requirements per unit of generating capacity have been analysed. The data shows that while more solar projects than wind projects are proposed across the state, the average wind project is larger in scale. Results show little difference in operational workforce requirements between wind and solar, at 0.04 and 0.05 workforce units per megawatt of capacity, lower than the approximately 0.17 operational workforce units per megawatt of coal-fired generating capacity. However, these differences diminish when the higher duplication requirements of renewables are factored in. Other issues to consider are that not all operating workforce for renewables will be located in regional areas, and that the operational employment impacts will vary between the regions, depending on which renewable energy proposals ultimately become operational.