Queensland council plots path from coal hub to renewable power superpower – pv journal Australia

Gladstone Regional Council has launched a 10-year financial transition roadmap outlining a plan to assist the economic centre to thrive in a decarbonising world, navigate the shift away from an economic system tied to fossil fuels and handle the impacts related to new power industries.

Council stated the Gladstone Area Financial Transition Roadmap will information it on what’s required to adapt to a quickly altering power sector and help a optimistic financial transition for its neighborhood over the approaching decade.

“The Gladstone area is dealing with a significant financial transformation as industries grapple with the decarbonisation of the worldwide economic system,” the report says. “The aim of the roadmap is to tell and information council on what’s required to help the area to efficiently adapt to a altering power sector over the subsequent decade, alongside different ranges of presidency and trade.”

Developed in partnership with regional financial improvement company, The Subsequent Economic system, the 166-page doc is a results of two years of analysis and intensive engagement involving 220 neighborhood, authorities and trade stakeholders.

The Subsequent Economic system Chief Govt Officer Dr Amanda Cahill stated the roadmap will place the Gladstone area, dwelling to alumina smelters, liquified pure fuel (LNG) and coal exports, and fossil fuel-fired energy stations to reply to once-in-a-generation adjustments within the power sector.

“This undertaking is the primary of its sort in Australia utilizing an inclusive and interactive planning course of to have interaction such a various group of stakeholders to sort out the challenges and alternatives of power transition,” she stated. “The roadmap will allow Gladstone Regional Council to steer and work with trade, authorities and the neighborhood to navigate adjustments on the horizon that immediately affect the native economic system.”

The roadmap identifies six key areas that the council might play a component in, together with power safety, establishing a viable hydrogen trade, financial diversification, workforce improvement, neighborhood advantages and environmental safety.

Gladstone Area Mayor Matt Burnett stated a lot of the roadmap’s suggestions centre across the council’s advocacy function, as effectively its connections with trade, the neighborhood, and different ranges of presidency.

Burnett stated council’s resolution to endorse the roadmap will permit it to find out the area’s future, with council having already began to establish how they’ll combine suggestions into different council plans, understanding price range line gadgets and workers.

“It locations us in pole place to capitalise on the financial alternatives of recent power industries, whereas additionally guaranteeing our area maintains its industrial heritage and neighborhood vitality in a brand new transitioned economic system,” he stated.

“Council understands how very important it’s to proceed working with our communities and stakeholders to diversify the area’s economic system for long run prosperity. This roadmap helps us decide what must be completed to understand this imaginative and prescient.”

Whereas different areas in Australia are additionally experiencing the affect of adjustments within the power sector, the report suggests the Gladstone space is especially susceptible to the impacts of decarbonisation.

The area has an financial dependence on a variety of carbon-intensive industries, together with the manufacturing of alumina and aluminium, LNG, and is dwelling to the coal-fired NRG Gladstone and Callide B energy stations, each of which face potential closure inside the subsequent 10 years. The area additionally derives important income from exporting fossil fuels with the port dealing with 25% of Australia’s LNG and 40% of its coal exports.

Whereas the dangers of a altering power sector are important given the area’s financial ties to carbon-intensive industries, the roadmap recognises it additionally enjoys a number of aggressive benefits over different areas within the race to net-zero emissions. An present industrial base, robust provide chains, a talented workforce, and entry to profitable Asian markets by the port makes the area enticing to a variety of recent traders and industries.

“Gladstone’s present industrial base and rising availability of low-cost renewable power signifies that the area can also be effectively positioned to learn from the power transition,” the report says. “There are alternatives to increase and diversify the area’s financial base and make the most of alternatives reminiscent of inexperienced manufacturing and hydrogen manufacturing.”

The area is already attracting important funding in renewable power era, inexperienced hydrogen and the manufacturing of renewable power tools. Fortescue Future Industries, a subsidiary of miner Fortescue Metals Group, has already gained planning approval to ascertain a 2 GW renewable power infrastructure-manufacturing facility at Aldoga,

Fellow mining large Rio Tinto obtained provides to construct greater than 4 GW of photo voltaic and wind capability in response to a proper market Request for Proposals as a part of its plan to transition the power wants of its three manufacturing belongings within the Gladstone area – the Boyne smelter, the Yarwun alumina refinery and the Queensland Alumina refinery – to renewables by 2030.

The area can also be on its approach to turning into a inexperienced hydrogen mecca with a number of bold tasks already within the pipeline, together with Hydrogen Utility’s proposal to ascertain as much as 3 GW in electrolysis plant, and as much as 5,000 tonnes per day ammonia manufacturing capability.

London-based Eco Vitality World is planning a $500 million undertaking combining a 300 MW photo voltaic plant with a 200 MW hydrogen plant and 100 MW of battery power storage whereas Japanese buying and selling large Sumitomo Company has signed a signed a contract with an EPC for a solar-powered inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing plant within the regional centre.

Cahill stated the roadmap will permit council to navigate the transition and maximise the advantages for the broader neighborhood.

“The Gladstone area is especially effectively positioned to make the most of new financial alternatives as we shift to new power options, however we additionally must plan forward to handle the potential impacts on the regional economic system, neighborhood and the surroundings,” she stated. “We will form these in ways in which profit all three.”