– Mark Squires, NSW Community Engagement Manager.
As many people focused on the renewable energy shift in New South Wales will know, there’s been a flurry of activity in the past couple of months. In this blog, I aim to summarise some of the key developments and how we’re seeing them play out in regional communities across NSW.
Image credit: NSW Government
Central-West Orana community benefits grant funding
On 11 April, some $60 million in grant funding was announced by NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe for the Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), to support 54 regional community projects in the REZ. Examples include upgrades to community halls (including Leadville Community Hall, pictured above) and sporting facilities, rewilding wetlands and supporting conversations on suicide prevention and positive mental health with the shearing industry.
This is the first round of grants under the $128 million Community and Employment Benefit Program.
Major road upgrades begin to transport infrastructure to the regions
Transporting all the components for wind and solar farms and large-scale batteries and transmission towers will require a mammoth and coordinated effort. For the CWO REZ, most of the equipment will be shipped from overseas into the Port of Newcastle, and destined for towns like Dubbo, Coolah and Dunedoo.
To upgrade 19 main roads and intersections transporting blades nearly 80 metres long, the NSW government has committed $110 million to upgrade roads and highways with a further $18 million coming from the federal government. This includes both state and local roads, which, on the surface of it, is potentially great news for local Councils.
Yet, we’re hearing concerns from Councils that discussions they’ve had with EnergyCo and Transport for NSW to date don’t address their concerns about specific travel routes and the roads and bridges in question, as well as the likely impact on existing traffic. Farmers are especially worried about getting their products to market, so any interruptions to their use of roads at critical times could have negative implications for their businesses.
We know that regional and rural Councils spend a large proportion of their income from rates on maintaining local roads and bridges, so it’s important their voices are heard and acknowledged so this shift to renewables works for everyone. We therefore encourage greater dialogue between the NSW government and the Council staff who are intimately familiar with their road networks and the implications of such a transportation challenge.
Central-West Orana REZ access rights granted
Yet another announcement came on 8 May, when EnergyCo declared that 10 renewable energy wind, solar and battery projects were granted access into the CWO REZ. The projects have a combined generation and storage capacity of around 7.15 gigawatts, enough power for more than 2.7 million homes by 2031.
The largest of these projects is the Liverpool Range Wind Farm, owned by Tilt Renewables. It was initially approved in 2018 after a long consultation period, and now has the potential to construct up to 185 turbines between Coolah and Cassilis, generating approximately 1,332 MW of wind energy.
Access rights also granted in the South West REZ
On 23 April, in the South West REZ, projects totalling 3.56 gigawatts of generation capacity were given access rights. The announcement included Origin Energy’s 1,460 MW Yanco Delta Wind Farm, 10kms north-west of Jerilderie that was successful in securing 100% of its generation request to EnergyCo.
The three other approved projects include wind, solar and battery storage with a combined generation capacity of 1,800 MW. The project proponents, Spark Renewables, Someva and BayWa.re will need to rescope some elements of their projects to allow for the fact they didn’t receive the full scale of access they were seeking.
Meanwhile, on 29 April, RE-Alliance met with Murray River Council (pictured above) and Edward River Council to help them better understand the scale of the projects, the possible impacts and how to maximise the long term benefits from this once-in-a-generation investment in the region. We’ll continue to work with them and other Councils in the region.
The access rights announcements are a huge and welcome step that allow communities to move forward and make more concrete plans with developers by getting much-needed clarity around which projects are likely to proceed. Some of the proponents of unsuccessful projects have indicated they will still proceed with the planning process requirements, albeit with a lower priority, since future connection points may allow them to proceed at a later date.
Community Foundations, Snowy Valleys Region
Across Australia, there’s a growing grass-roots network based on local volunteers supporting local projects, called Community Foundations Australia.
They first came to our attention when Louise Halsey and Diana Palmer of Community Foundations, Snowy Valleys Region (formerly Tumut Region), contacted us in late 2024. They’d heard of the work RE-Alliance did with Hay Shire Council in 2023, and reached out to see if we could support them too.
In the past few months, they’ve engaged Transgrid, their local Snowy Valleys Council, community groups and so many other locals to figure out a solution that might work for everyone to get the best deal from this shift to a renewable energy future.
Last week they convened a round-table discussion in Parliament House, hosted by Joe McGirr MP, member for Wagga Wagga, to discuss various models for community benefit funds that could work for developers, Councils and Community Foundations (pictured above).
RE-Alliance is happy to work with this group of devoted locals to do what we can to create long-lasting benefits.