“Unfortunately, Australians have seen too many examples of workers and communities being thrown on the scrapheap when their industries face structural change,” he said. “We can and must take this opportunity to demonstrate that workers’ livelihoods and futures matter and deserve planning and investment.”

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AGL chief operating officer Markus Brokhof said the company understood there would be changes impacting its workforce and the wider industry as the clean energy transition gathered pace.

"We know the complexity and scale of our transition brings uncertainty, as well as concerns around future job security," he said.

"But equally we are confident of the opportunities our plans will provide as we develop our sites into industrial energy hubs."

Ahead of a proposed demerger of its large coal and gas power plants across the country, AGL has mapped out long-term plans to diversify its sites into “hubs” for lower-carbon sources of energy, which may include big batteries, hydrogen production and carbon capture and storage.

Mr Brokhof said the company would continue meeting with union leadership to keep staff up to date and provide opportunities for feedback.

AGL’s decision to fast-track its exit from coal, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, is the latest sign of Australia’s heavy polluters responding to intensifying calls from investors and wider society to curtail the use of fossil fuels.

The viability of coal-fired power plants, which presently account for the biggest share of Australia’s electricity, has also been increasingly under threat from cheaper-to-run renewable energy flooding into the grid and slashing daytime wholesale power prices. Last year, EnergyAustralia announced it would close down Victoria’s Yallourn coal-fired generator in 2028, four years earlier than originally planned, while its Mt Piper plant would close before 2040.

Despite the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) last year suggesting the grid could be rid of coal as early as 2032, AGL chief executive Graeme Hunt pointed out that forecast had been made in a draft report only, and the company did not agree with it “at this point in time”.

While Mr Hunt renewed warnings that removing reliable coal power plants too soon could risk causing a “messy” energy transition and threaten the reliability and affordability of electricity, he told The Age and the Herald that the business would monitor market changes and review its closure dates on a yearly basis. Factors to consider would include the amount of new generation being built to replace coal; the availability of on-demand power capacity to support weather-reliant renewables; technological advances in battery technology; and improvements in transmission lines to shift energy from one part of the country to another.

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