PUMPED TO GO

Within 30 seconds of flicking a switch, a whopping 250mw of electricity materialises with the ability to keep that on for six to eight hours, when the water has to be pumped back. No other kind of generator can do that.

Senator Canavan, a politician more inclined to promote coal-fired power than renewables, sees the ingenuity in in the Kidston scheme.

He sees big benefits in not just providing p stability and strength to an electricity grid disrupted by increasing in intermittent wind and solar so generation, but in a job creation cr scheme to help get Townsville vi back on its feet.

It is the biggest investment so far by the Federal Government’s Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility, which will provide a $610 million low-interest loan to largely fund the hydro scheme and an associated high-voltage transmission line that is planned to be built and partly funded by the State Government’s Powerlink corporation.

Senator Canavan says NAIF commissioned accounting group Deloitte to assess the hydro scheme, finding it will save North Queenslanders something in the order of $500 million over the life of the project by helping to take the peaks off volatile electricity prices.

Mr Harding says the whole of the state benefits by strengthening the transmission network.

Townsville also stands to benefit, big time. It will be the fly-in fly-out employment hub and transport and logistics centre for what could be a $1 billion project.

Mr Harding says the hydro project will create 350 construction jobs and the transmission line well over 200 jobs during a construction period of three-and-a-half years.

There are 300 jobs in construction of a second solar farm and another 200 jobs for the 150mw wind farm, if it goes ahead.

“If you add those together in construction, potentially over the next three to four-year period, you are looking at over 1000 direct jobs,” Mr Harding says.

“The Townsville port will play a major role for all the deliveries to site for the project.”

Mr Harding says their funding is largely in place and their contractor, a John Holland Mcconnell Dowell joint venture, is set to go.

The final “piece of the puzzle” is approval and agreement with Powerlink and the State Government on construction of the 180km high voltage power line needed between Kidston and Mount Fox to link the project to the State’s northern transmission network.

When the State Government makes a final investment decision, likely in the coming weeks, Australia’s fourth pumped hydro scheme can get under way.