Northern Australia Minister briefed on Barcaldine Renewable Energy Zone

Heading west to Barcaldine last week after attending the Developing Northern Australia conference in Mackay, Ms King met with acting Premier Steven Miles, Barcaldine Regional Council Mayor Sean Dillon, representatives of the Remote Area Planning and Development Board, and Sunshot Industries representatives Ross Garnaut AC and Rob Chandler.

Sunshot Industries is partnering with RAPAD, with a hefty $1m investment from the Barcaldine council, to deliver the energy hub.

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Cr Dillon described the visit as the most significant step since the state government announced commercial feasibility funding for the project in 2021.

"That really allowed us to see the project to a level of maturity that it previously hadn't," he said.

"Today, in our boardroom for over two hours, we heard dedicated businesses not only give a statement of intent but how the businesses will interact, how that will affect things at a local, state and even an international level, around urea importation, and offsetting the energy crisis that we're seeing and the impact that's having on agriculture, that probably still hasn't been felt.

"I hope (the meeting) does lead to a tangible outcome, but what it does very clearly demonstrate is that all levels of government are on the one page around what it means to set up these communities for the future."

Cooperation between federal and state governments was emphasised repeatedly, firstly by Mr Miles, who said the multi-faceted project incorporating a large-scale solar farm, biosteam turbine generator, and Australia's first commercial-scale use of hydrogen, to produce fresh fruit and vegetables in glasshouses, green ammonia, and urea for stock feed, demonstrated many incredible opportunities.

"For the first time, we have all three levels of government working together to see what we can deliver," he said.

Ms King said "innovative forward-facing projects that look to a clean energy future" were what the Albanese government wanted to encourage, saying the sensitivities around the transition to renewable energy were a fact of life.

"There's lots of manufacturing industries that can be supported by this renewable energy zone, so I see what's happening here, and I know the council sees it as well, as a possible model for other regional towns right around the country," she said. "The federal government will not be a bystander for these really exciting projects that are based on having renewable energy."

Last Thursday's gathering was significant in likely giving an assurance to unlocking finance, and a possible way through the many processes that will be required for such a multi-pronged venture.

Cr Dillon said the energy hub's proponents were very keen for financial support to develop the precinct, which would then unlock private capital investment.

"The state has been very methodically working through a clear process to do that and are probably somewhat more advanced than the federal government, purely on the visibility of it," he said. "The federal government has that visibility today."

He said the outcome he was looking for from the meeting was the mechanisms that were to apply, or the creation of one, for the unique manufacturing and renewable energy crossover.

"I'm not putting words in the ministers' mouths but I'm sure they're all keen to see a process that allows us a clear path forward that probably hasn't been apparent," he said. "As a result of us all sitting in one room onsite today, we would hope our relevant bureaucracies would fall into suit with that."

According to Sunshot operational manager and former Barcaldine mayor Rob Chandler, the project that has been six years in the making is almost at its culmination.

It has so far secured 13 agreements from businesses currently sited in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and NSW to relocate to Barcaldine, and had secured the water and land, and all the trunk infrastructure.

"The urea plant is in the full feasibility now; the protected horticulture is in the final stages of financial close, and the precinct - we're ready," he said.

"(We need) the first of the start-up capital from the state, which is imminent, and then the federal government will follow, and then we've got some huge investors that are ready to invest in the project.

"It will be an absolutely boost, not only to western Queensland rural and remote communities but right across Australia."

As well as wind generators that are in the planning stage, the project hopes to manufacture vanadium flow batteries using the raw product from Julia Creek for the Queensland grid and for export, potentially produce AdBlue, use biomass from prickly acacia for pyrolysis to produce char, bio-oil and bio-gas, and produce essential oils from suitable eucalypts and eremophila mitchelli, or false sandalwood.

Mr Chandler said they'd like to turn the first dirt on the project before the end of the 2022 calendar year.

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