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By CAITLIN CROWLEY
CONSTRUCTION of a renewable hydrogen demonstration plant on the Western Downs will be studied as part of a new project to map the training and skills needed to power the burgeoning industry in Queensland.
The state government has partnered with Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise (TSBE) and CS Energy to use its project at Kogan as a learning opportunity – not just for Queensland, but the wider industry internationally.
“It is such a new industry that in fact, we don’t know what skills are going to be required,” training minister Di Farmer told the Caller.
“We know we can’t have an industry unless we have got the people who have the training and the skills to work in that industry.”
Farmer said as the demonstration plant was built and operated, a dedicated skills officer would assess the training and skills needed and connect local suppliers with hydrogen manufacturing opportunities.
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“We need to, step by step, work through a real life project to be able to describe what is required,” she said.
“It means we’ll know whether we can work with existing skills or whether we need to develop whole new training qualifications. These are the things that people around the world are still trying to discover, which is why it is so exciting.”
CS Energy expects to start building the hydrogen demonstration plant in March and is aiming to finish by the end of this year.
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Queensland’s hydrogen industry is forecast to grow by $19 billion by 2040, creating 10,000 new jobs.
With the Palaszczuk Government pledging to end Queensland’s reliance on coal-fired power by 2035, TSBE’s CEO Ali Davenport said hydrogen was a key industry for coal workers to transition into.
“We’re very excited about the opportunities for existing energy producers to work in the hydrogen space,” Davenport said.
“We’re already finding that there are a lot of synergies between those workers who are working in that space, to hydrogen as well.”
The TSBE project is a $161,000 investment from the state government’s Emerging Industries’ Hydrogen Skills Fund.