Hit gas on this game changer

THERE are potentially 1000 jobs available at Genex Power’s world-leading Kidston project.

The site already includes a solar farm and a pumped storage hydro facility is the next stage.

Genex is committed to building a larger solar farm to help power the hydro facility, which is what makes the project so unique.

What it needs, though, is for the State Government to come to the party.

The transmission line connecting the Kidston site to Mount Fox needs to be upgraded to cope with the extra power being generated for the grid.

Genex has to do this upgrade but needs the State Government to give the go-ahead for the transmission line.

The State Government-owned Powerlink and Genex are planning to jointly fund the upgrade of the transmission line.

Clearly these changes have to be carefully assessed and monitored as adding power to the grid is a complicated matter but these upgrades need to happen as a matter of priority.

This is not a new project that’s come out of nowhere – this is something that’s been talked about for a number of years.

It would be a huge boon for the region for its approval to be prioritised.

There is a high likelihood that Townsville will be used as a fly-in, fly-out base for the project, which is about 270km northwest of the city.

Townsville workers need as many jobs as they can get and this project promises them, so all levels of government should be doing everything they can to keep this project progressing.

The other exciting part of this project is that if it all goes ahead as planned, it will be a game changer not just for the North, but potentially for the rest of the country.

The idea of having solar, hydro and potentially a wind farm all at the same place and at a disused mine site shows what can be done with innovative thinking. The more ideas like this that come to fruition, the better for all parties.