Ninety-seven per cent of Australia's renewable electricity is already generated in the regions and, according to the Business Council of Australia, will create 195,000 new regional jobs over the next 50 years.

Electricity distributor Powercor this year recruited one of its largest ever intakes of regional apprentices, including Ballarat apprentice lineman Matt Simpson.

"Just today we are upgrading lines for a wind farm ... changing a couple of power poles to new ones to make them more reliable," the 19-year-old said.

"At the moment, what we're trying to do is just make everything new and up to date so that it doesn't fail and cause faults or emergency outages.

"It's good, you always know that you're going to have a job in the future."

In Ballarat, Powercor data shows homes with rooftop solar have jumped from 10.3 per cent from December 2016 to 19.8 per cent for the same month in 2022.

Historically, there was a one-way flow of energy sourced from a small number of very large generators and transported through power networks.

As rooftop solar grows, so does opportunity for two-way flow of electricity from smaller generators, for example, from private homes.

But grid capacity takes time - and workers - to build.

A spokesperson from Powercor said apprentices and trainees were on the frontline and played a major role in integrating renewables into the network.

"Using our solar enablement program as an example, our lineworkers are busy upgrading transformers and balancing load and embedded generation across powerline phases to enable more customers to export their excess solar energy back into the grid," the spokesperson said.

"These roles all help build and maintain the network, which acts as a gateway for clean energy technologies."

Federation University associate director for partnerships and growth Bill Mundy said there was major demand for skills in the renewables sector.

"Every single conversation that I have with an industry proponent in the renewable energy sector starts with, 'how can you help us to access your students to fill our workforce demands?'," he said.

"There's between 15,000 and 19,000 roles that are required ... to ensure our transition to a zero-emissions economy and the industry folks that are involved in the delivery of all of those assets, whether they're wind, solar, hydro-waste to energy, whatever it happens to be, also recognise there is a dearth of talent available to them."

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In 2023, Federation University offered for the first time a Certificate III in Composites Trade to train wind turbine blade repair technicians, following the construction of Australia's first wind turbine training tower at the university's Asia Pacific Renewable Energy Training Centre (APRETC) in 2021.

Mr Mundy said it was one of many jobs where there were spots to be filled.

"As we work more closely with students and with careers advisors and with schools ... we can flag the opportunity that exists for folks to work in the sector and that's part and parcel of the evolution of the opportunities that will exist in the renewable energy sector," he said.

Modelling by the Australian Conservation Foundation showed more regional jobs will be created by replacing fossil fuel industries with renewables.

It found that installing rooftop solar on one million homes would create 26,484 construction jobs and 6006 jobs in solar farms.

The equivalent power in wind energy would create 5558 jobs. Comparable power from new coal and gas would only create 3573 and 652 jobs, respectively.

And there are hopes the jobs boom will bring young people to the regions.

A key goal stemming from Regional Australia Institute's (RAI) 'Rebalance the Nation' report is to grow Australia's regional population - just over 9.5 million people - to 11 million by 2032 and for 35 per cent of that population to be made up of those aged 15 to 39.

Regional Australia Institute chief executive officer Liz Ritchie said young people would play a key part in that growth and were critical to the regional workforce as opportunities expanded.

"The technology is moving at such a pace that the younger generation are learning this currently," Ms Ritchie said.

"[Young people] bring an awful amount to regional communities ... they're coming with careers that provide pretty solid salaries that get re-circulated through the local economy."