Aside from moving away in their 20s to study, Stephanie Sabrinkas and Josie Hess have spent most of their lives in the Latrobe Valley.
"[When we] came back in our late 20s, we found a town and an area in flux," said Mx Hess, who uses they/them pronouns.
So the pair created a podcast called the Coal Face to examine what was happening in the region and the future of coal in Australia.
Both had grandfathers who migrated to Australia to work in the local coal mines, but they wanted to understand what the transition away would look like for the community.
"It wasn't exactly a cool place to grow up in the '90s and so when we came back, we sort of found all of these artists and activists and people working on transition," Mx Hess said.
With the announcement that AGL would close its Loy Yang A plant 10 years early in 2035, Mx Hess said some young people whose families were not affected were quite apathetic to the news.
"They're not really given reasons to care, which I think is a huge failing because they're the future workforce," they said.
"We've always been an area that's [rooted in] power generation.
"It doesn't really matter to a lot of people what kind of power it is, as long as it's power.
That's what we do down here. A lot of [our] identity is tied into that."
Transition plan needed
AGL's announcement makes Loy Yang A the third Latrobe Valley power station to announce an early closure.
The nearby Hazelwood plant shut in 2017, and Yallourn is set to follow in 2028.
Ms Sabrinkas said a lot had changed in the industry from the "glory days" before the industry was privatised in the 1990s to the focus on transition.
"When I was in high school … one of the things that you could do to get ahead was go get a job at the power station … but I think that's been different since coming back," she said.
With about $30 to $40 billion in renewable projects in the development stages for Gippsland, it is hoped new jobs will be created in the region.
"The date keeps changing when the power stations that are going to close, so the training industries are only just starting to figure out what courses they need to offer to skill people," Ms Sabrinkas said.
She said a clear transition plan was needed for locals to feel secure in their future.
"We need all of the industry leaders and the education leaders to be a little more transparent in informing the community about those changes to get rid of some of that worry," Ms Sabrinkas said.
"[I hope] the community can be involved in reaping the benefits of renewable energy."
The pair also hope for a Latrobe Valley where creative industries can thrive.
Fear for local businesses
Traralgon Chamber of Commerce and Industry treasurer David Clark said the closure of the power station would affect businesses within the region, given many well-paid jobs would be lost.
"It gives us more need for some sort of transition from coal to either some sort of renewables industry in the valley or replacement industries to replace the level of employment," he said.
"And not only that, the expenditure in the three towns [of Moe, Morwell and Traralgon] that that brings."
Mr Clark said businesses needed more certainty around transition plans to prepare for decreased spending in the region.
"Even if we have the same amount of workers on lower salaries, they're not going to be able to afford the homes they were buying before," he said.
"So it does become a bit of a cycling effect in terms of just everything suffers, really."
Mr Clarke said energy companies should learn from the abrupt closure of the Hazelwood Power Station in 2017 to prevent a repeat of history.
Hazelwood was shut with just six months' notice.
"I think our reaction to the Hazelwood closure was precisely that — it was a reaction rather than a planned exit," Mr Clarke said.
Looking to future jobs
Wendy Farmer, president of the community group Voices of the Valley, said the privately-owned energy companies continued to change closure dates, making it difficult for communities to devise adaptation plans.
"How do we prepare the community to start thinking about the jobs of the future?" she said.
"Some of those will be our children. [They'll] have jobs that we don't know.
"So how do we train our children and our workforce for the jobs of the future?"
Ms Farmer said it was also important to ensure the money invested into Gippsland for renewable energy was correctly distributed for the environment.
"We can't just let cowboys come in and do what they think they want to do and impact our environment even more," she said.
"It's not good enough to say, whatever happens, happens.
"If we are changing, let's do it the best we can."
