Plans to build one of the world’s biggest wind and solar projects in a remote desert region in the south-east of Western Australia will undergo full federal environmental assessment and require approval under the EPBC Act, the project’s developers have revealed.
The Western Green Energy Hub (WGEH), a joint venture of InterContinental Energy, CWP Global and Mirning Green Energy, say that federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek has determined the project will be assessed as a controlled action, through an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
WGEH joined the EPBC queue at the end of January, with referral documents detailing a project of mind boggling scope, including the rollout of up to 35 “nodes” of around 2-3 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar, with an approximately 1.5 GW electrolyser and/or data centre at the centre of each node.
The documents say the project would be rolled out over a nominal seven stages, which will ultimately result in the installation of up to 70 GW of renewable energy generation capacity from roughly 60 million solar modules and up to about 3,000 wind turbines.
In its first phase, WGEH would generate up to 8GW of hybrid wind and solar power and produce up to 500 kilo-tonnes a year of renewable hydrogen. Fully phased, it would produce around 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year, for a range of applications including minerals processing and heavy transport.
Other elements of the WGEH would include “a suite of electrolysers and associated substations,” water and hydrogen pipelines, an ammonia production and storage facility, a desalination plant and a construction camp to accommodate an initial 100-300 workers up to around 3,300 workers.
The project is proposed to take in roughly 2.29 million hectares of pastoral leases and crown lands, stretching hundreds of kilometres from north-west of Eucla, near the border with South Australia, towards Cocklebiddy and north of the Eyre Highway to south of the Trans Australian Railway.
According to referral documents, the project area is located within the Nullarbor Plain and Hampton Interim Bioregionalisation of Australia (IBRA) regions, with the great majority situated within the Nullarbor Plain.
Document say the northern boundary of the project area adjoins the freehold land held by the Australian Rail Track Corporation on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia, that accommodates the Trans-Australian Railway.
The vegetation and fauna habitats of the project area are described as ranging from “good to degraded condition,” due to a history of past extensive grazing pressure from rabbits in addition to pastoral grazing and soil profile erosion pressures.
“Weeds are common and widespread, particularly in association with the transcontinental railway corridor at the north of the project area,” the documents say.
Coastal and offshore components would include a marine offloading facility, desalination plant, brine pipeline and an ammonia (or other vector) export pipeline, set within Western Australian state waters only.
The proposed project area is also said to avoid all Commonwealth or state marine parks, national parks or other conservation reserves, while no World Heritage Areas, Ramsar sites or sites listed in the Directory of Important Wetlands are intersected by the project area.
Source: Western Green Energy Hub
In a statement on Monday, WGEH CEO Ray Macdonald said the consortium was “fully supportive” of the minister’s decision and the further work the project team would now need to undertake.
“Our project is complex and extensive, and it is important that we have a complete understanding of the species, ecosystems and other values that are protected or particularly sensitive,” Macdonald said.
“Advanced studies will guide our primary avoidance strategy, meaning significant areas can be totally avoided and buffer zones introduced to ensure we have no physical overlay nor impact”.
WGEH says it hopes the work it conducts will add “significant value” to existing data on the Western Australian Nullarbor, as an area that it says has not been studied in detail and is under-represented in state and federal research.
Macdonald says the ultimate goal of the WGEH, which has also been granted Major Project Status by the federal Labor government, is to “generate clean energy without negative environmental effects.”
“The WGEH project aligns with both the state and Commonwealth hydrogen strategies and our prospects have been bolstered by the Australian government’s announcement of the A$ 22.7 billion “Future Made in Australia” initiative, including a $2 per kg renewable Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive and a clear focus on the renewable hydrogen and e-fuels sectors,” he said on Monday.
“Our Stage 1 FID (final investment decision) and financial close is presently scheduled for 2029, giving us the lead time to both frame our investment options and undertake nominated advanced studies.”
The main stakeholders in the project are InterContinental Energy (46%) and CWP Global (44%). The 10 per cent holding of Mirning Green Energy, a commercial subsidiary of Mirning Traditional Lands Aboriginal Corporation (MTLAC), claims to set new benchmarks on the approach to community, environmental assessment measures, respect for indigenous culture, and inclusion and participation of First Nations Peoples.
As Renew Economy has reported, the proposal is likely to take many years to work through environmental approval processes, alone – both state and federal – and already faces opposition from some quarters, including from the Bob Brown Foundation.
The Western Australia Environmental Protection Authority, which is carrying out the state-level assessment of WGEH, said in November of last year that 259 of 282 submissions received called for the project to have a public environmental review, which the consortium will now be required to do.
The EPA also said the project presented a complex case: “Detailed assessment is required to determine the extent of the proposal’s direct and indirect impacts, and whether the EPA environmental factor objectives can be met.”
It cites the potential significant effects from the clearing of 27,188 hectares, the impacts on benthic (water based) communities and habitat, dredging and ship movements; the potential collision with wind turbines and vehicles, and on inland waters and subterranean land forms in the Nullarbor Plains limestone karst system.
“Located across a large area of the Hampton Tablelands, the WGEH project is complex and requires great care to progress; we are fully aligned with the EPA prescribed level of assessment, and the related assessment requirements,” WGEH CEO Ray Macdonald said in a statement at the time.
“To ensure our investigations are thorough, we have already spent considerable time on-country, with traditional owners, environmental and cultural heritage team and we will now move into more targeted and advanced studies.”
