RAPAD’s wide open road to reaching our full renewable energy potential

The drive to embrace renewable energy in central western Queensland is strong, very strong. The open country where I live and work is the pin up location for the renewable energy industry postcard – thousands of square kilometres of flat savannah like country with easily 300 plus days a year of uninterrupted sunshine and great volumes of underground hotrock reserves. 

A number of large solar energy generators have been quick to capitalise on what we have by building 50MW worth of solar farms out this way but we as a region have been left largely unsatisfied. The problem, current large scale solar farms don’t lower our local electricity prices, provide us with sustainable jobs, generate revenue for our local communities or encourage new business and investment into the region.

The constraining issue is as yet no one has the way forward for the central west defined into stages that deliver benefits here. What’s needed is a set of practical steps which begins with low cost energy and leads to the bigger transformative benefits renewable energy can deliver. We want to know what can we do right now to lower the local cost of electricity using renewable energy to start us on this journey, but who to ask? 

Who better than renowned economist and energy heavyweight Professor Ross Garnaut AO and President of Simec Zen Energy. It is our absolute privilege to call Professor Garnaut a friend of RAPAD and the region. For the last two years he has been guiding us on how best to reach our full renewable energy potential.  After all if we can provide residents, business and councils with very inexpensive power, money will be freed up to circulate through the local economy and that will help. But if our locally generated, clean and low cost power can be a gateway to attract new business we can supercharge our local economy to better able withstand future buffeting from markets and weather. 

Professor Garnaut was once again in the region last week presenting to the Western Queensland Local Government Association on how councils and communities around Australia are taking practical renewable energy steps to solve local issues and maximise local opportunities.  What could opportunities in our patch look like? Things as diverse as industrial estate’s with low cost clean power, community owned microgrids and how to ensure we are part of the global hydrogen and synthetic fuel indsutry.

Professor Garnaut will lead a small group of industry specialists to undertake this task. Those chosen will have energy knowledge in spades but more than that will have entrepreneurial spirit, an appreciation for urgency and quite simply, be doers.  The information we gain will put us in a much better position to be able to genuinely engage with Government and business to help sure up our regions future purpose and deliver benefits in our region for our region.

 As the Triffids said it’s a wide open road when it comes to our future but we feel, thanks to the guidance of Professor Garnaut, we are well on our way to reaching our full renewable energy potential.