With a background in performing arts, Emily Driscoll successfully made the transition to clean energy. More than a decade later, her off-grid business is booming, writes EcoGeneration editor Gavin Dennett.
There was a time when a lack of experience working in the clean energy industry was a hinderance to breaking into the sector. The once fledging renewables field sought people with expertise who could hit the ground running on new projects. Job aspirants were often favoured if they could bring a specific set of skills to their vocation.
But times in clean energy are changing fast. Of course, there will always be the need for expertise, accreditation and experience in technical roles, but the sector is moving at such a pace and is encompassing duties across a diverse spectrum that the opportunities to cross over from other industries have never been greater.
Given clean energy in Australia is currently enduring a job skills shortage due to the speed of change in the renewables transition, prospective employers had better get used to a swathe of applicants seeking to transfer their capabilities from any number of occupations.
There are many advantages an outsider can bring to renewables, including in entrepreneurial, business and management capacities. One such example is Emily Driscoll, co-founder of Off-Grid Energy Australia, a battery storage and sustainable storage solutions company.
With a background in performing arts, Driscoll made the transition to clean energy, establishing her business in 2011.
“I came into the industry purely by chance,” she tells EcoGeneration. “I studied arts and once I finished my degree I happened to be on a few arts councils. On one of them, three others worked for a solar company so for quite a few years I was managing two careers simultaneously, in performing arts and renewables.
“Doing both those things at once was a good learning curve and has served me well as far as career progression goes. I worked for that solar company for a number of years, which is where I met the three other founding members of Off-Grid Energy Australia [her husband Hugh Driscoll, as well as Sean LePoidevin and Randal Love]. The off-grid department at that company was shutting down and we decided that was the area we wanted to get into. At the time there weren’t many businesses doing off-grid as a specialty.”
Recognising off-grid as a niche, but growing area of the renewables industry with opportunities abound, Off-Grid Energy Australia commenced operations and Driscoll went from dual careers across vastly different sectors to becoming a business leader in the clean energy realm.
“We recognised that for a lot of people, off-grid is an essential service, and at the time we felt they were not being adequately serviced,” she says. “We saw the opportunity to jump in and be that dedicated off-grid provider. Providing 24/7 power to these people is a fabulously challenging technical area to be working in.
“There were some advantages of managing dual careers simultaneously, going from a creative mindset into building a business. I wear many different hats and that can be mildly chaotic, but it has been a fantastic way of learning a huge range of skills and gaining experience in many cogs in the wheel.”
While Driscoll benefitted from bringing her experience in performing arts across to the renewables sector, there was still a period of adjustment and self-doubt.
“It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact I don’t have a technical background,” she says. “I was not an engineer and I wasn’t an expert on policy so I struggled for a long time valuing my experience and worth in this industry.
“When I first came in, I wish someone said to me there are so many different parts to this industry; it’s not just the guys onsite installing systems, or system designers and engineers. Just because you don’t have that technical knowledge doesn’t mean you don’t have extremely valuable skills.
“However, I now have my Clean Energy Council-accredited solar battery design accreditation that I got in 2021, and I’m currently working towards my off-grid design accreditation. I love throwing myself out of my comfort zone. That is definitely something learnt from performing arts. It has served me well in this industry.”
It would be easy to assume that being a business specialising in off-grid energy solutions, many of the client base would be in remote Australia, but Driscoll says this is not the case.
“Our three main states are South Australia, Victoria and NSW, but we have installed in every state and territory except ACT,” she says. “We have also done systems in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Pacific Islands. Because it’s such a niche area and we focus on off-grid, we cover a wide area, but our customers are surprisingly not as remote as you would think. A majority of systems we install are domestic residential homes and businesses – commercial, farming and agriculture.
“We have installed in remote central Australia, but a lot of what we do is fringe of grid – new pieces of land in outer cities and towns that is opened up to developments, but the power is too expensive to hook up.
“Many of our customers can actually see the power pole from where they will be building their home, but still get a $80,000 quote to get power connected because of things such as easements and upgrades to transformers.
“We build all our systems in-house so it makes it nice and easy for the onsite team. We can knock off a full off-grid system for a domestic home in a day and a bit because all the prework has been done, with all the testing and quality assurance we do in our warehouse.”