Staff writers
The Andrews Labor Government is promising to create 130 solar manufacturing jobs in Gippsland and in Melbourne’s south east as part of its plans to revive the State Electricity Commission.
The state government made the latest announcement this morning as part of its target to spend $1 billion 4.5 gigawatts of renewables to replace Loy Yang A by 2035.
The new jobs will be delivered under a $2.9 million renewables worker training scheme to be run in partnership with the Latrobe Valley Authority and Solar Victoria.
Jobs will include working in manufacturing solar hot water systems, batteries, solar farm assembly.
Other parts of the announcement include establishing a new manufacturing offshore wind port at Port of Hastings.
There is also a $6 million Wind Worker Training Centre which would be based in Melbourne to help train workers needed to reach already committed targets of two gigawatts of offshore wind by 2032 and 9 GW by 2040.
A re-elected government would establish a new body Offshore Wind Energy Victoria to help streamline the sector.
VicGrid will lead the development of the transmission lines needed to for offshore wind.
Premier Daniel Andrews said offshore wind was a rapidly growing industry, “delivering clean energy for Victorians and creating jobs”.
“We’ll make sure the sector has the skilled workforce for the future by investing in training now,” Mr Andrews said.
The plan to put the state’s power sector back into majority public ownership is expected to create 59,000 by 2035 under the transition from coal to renewables.
