Massive wind farm projects get $360 million in taxpayer support
The State Government has dipped into its renewable energy fund to pay out $360 million to help develop two huge windfarms of up to 180 turbines.
The massive $2 billion Mt James wind farm has won approval from the State Government
The government will pay $192.5 million from its Renewable Energy and Hydrogen Fund to the Wambo wind farm project and would control a 50 per cent stake in the first stage, which would deliver 42 turbines and have 252 megawatts of capacity.
The government has not revealed whether it would provide extra equity for the second stage – which involves another 300Mw and a 50 Mw battery – but the Wambo project has approval for up to 80 turbines.
The project is currently owned by London-based Cubico and the Government has suggested it would be a joint venture with Stanwell, with the possibility of a further power purchasing agreement for the 50 per cent of the project output that it does not own.
Stanwell’s Michael O’Rourke said the GOC could also be the operator of the project once it’s built.
The Government-owned Powerlink has also struck a $170 million agreement to connect Acciona’s Mcintyre Wind Farm to the grid, which will also come as a boost to another government-owned corporation, CleanCo, which has the 102 Mw Karara wind farm within the McIntyre project.
Korea Zinc’s Ark Energy also has a stake in McIntyre as part of its plans to decarbonise its Sun Metals zinc refinery in Townsville.
Treasurer Cameron Dick said the Government’s ownership of the generator companies allowed the projects to get underway faster and would bring affordable renewable energy to Queensland.
In a new study from the Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific project found there was substantial scope for Australia to use its solar, wind and land endowments to become a major exporter of green electricity, green hydrogen, green ammonia, and green metals.
The project calculated the land area and energy requirements for an indicative scenario in which Australia exported the same quantity of energy in green electricity and hydrogen as it exports in thermal coal and liquefied natural gas and processes currently-exported iron ore, bauxite, and alumina into green steel and green aluminium for value-added export.
“Using 2018–2019 data, we calculate that about 2 per cent of Australia’s land mass would be needed for solar and wind farms,” the group said.
Writing in The Conversation, the authors said the energy requirement would be about 7000 terawatt-hours of solar and wind generation a year – about 27 times Australia’s current electricity output and use.
