Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) chair Anna Collyer told a Women in Energy and Climate Symposium at Parliament House on International Women’s Day that females excel at the skills the country needs for the decarbonisation of the energy system.

She explained that due to the shifting nature of energy towards variable and dispersed renewable energy, opportunities will only grow for the highly valuable ‘power skills’ that women tend to bring.

“With the scale of the build ahead of us, it can only help to add more women in traditional technical roles – engineering and the trades – otherwise we simply won’t have enough people to get the work done,” Anna explained.

“But we increasingly need different skills to solve the new problems that are emerging, whether it be working with communities to find space for 10,000km of new poles and wires or the invention of new businesses to support the boom in rooftop solar.

She added that we’re also seeing the scope for extraordinary technological innovation in storage and generation to keep the grid operating, which means working with creativity and collaboration between research, development, investment and regulation.

Women continue to comprise less than 40% of the workforce in clean energy and closer to 20% across the whole sector, making energy the third most male-dominated industry in Australia after mining and construction.

In her speech, Anna pointed to three systemic issues the energy sector needs to address:

• Ensuring physical and psychological safety
• Improving recruitment and promotion practices to remove unconscious bias
• Addressing traditional disadvantages of pay and progression that women face as child-bearers

“The inclusion of women throughout the energy sector is essential for us to get where we are going,” Anna concluded.

“We need every available talent, every kind of perspective, applied to the fundamental transformation of the energy sector if we’re to reach net zero by 2050.”