Power farm all set for start- up

VENTURERS behind Australia’s first fully integrated wind, solar and battery storage farm at Hughenden are close to starting construction on a $ 150 million first- stage project after a successful capital raising and listing on the stock exchange.

Canberra- based Windlab wants to build a big 1200MW power station, called the Kennedy Energy Park, about 17km southeast of Hughenden.

The generation would be enough to power 400,000 homes.

But it will begin with a firststage 60MW “proof of concept” farm of 15MW solar, 41MW wind and 2MW battery storage.

Windlab chief financial officer Rob Fisher said about half of $ 50 million raised in an initial public offer would be directed to the Kennedy stage one project.

“We expect that ( project) to kick off in the next few months,” Mr Fisher said.

“We are continuing to work hard with all the different inputs, the financiers and equipment suppliers. We expect to be generating by the end of next year.”

Mr Fisher said they would link into existing transmission lines, augmented to fit capacity for the first- stage project, but hoped to be part of the State Labor Government’s Powering North Queensland proposal which would develop transmission lines to link renewable projects at Cairns, Forsayth, Kidston, Hughenden and Townsville.

“The big ( 1200MW) project will need a large transmission line. We look forward to being part of that ( Powering North Queensland proposal).”

Meanwhile, the development company behind a transmission line project between Townsville and Cloncurry, CuString Pty Ltd, says it has received a “groundswell of community support” to connect the North West Minerals Province to the electricity grid.

CuString director John O’Brien met with the Mount Isa to Townsville Economic Development Zone group this week.

“We have met with a very wide range of stakeholders, including the shire councils in the MITEZ group and every major mining company in the North West Minerals Province and we have been blown away by the groundswell of community support,” he said.

Mr O’Brien said it was critical for North Queensland that energy initiatives were converted into tangible benefits for the mining, minerals processing and other sectors.

“No volume of solar farms will replace the jobs lost if we cease to export refined zinc and copper,” he said.