Renewable Energy Partners has unveiled its second giga-scale renewable energy project proposal this week, with the website launch of the approximately 1,000 megawatt (MW) Lake Dalrymple wind farm in Queensland.
The 140 turbine project is on the other side of the main transmission line heading up the coast from Brisbane to the industrial hubs of Gladstone and Townsville and on up to Cairns. It’s about 60km west of Collinsville, a town famous for its historic underground coal mine.
On Monday, Renewable Energy Partners (REP) unveiled the new-look Bogunda Energy Hub, which has been scaled back from a proposal for 5 gigawatt of (GW) wind to a hybrid of 850 MW wind, 500 MW solar and 500 MW, four-hour battery next to the CopperString transmission project, south-east of Hughenden.
Queensland has become notoriously uncertain as a home for wind projects, after the calling of several projects for further scrutiny by planning minister Jarrod Bleijie, who has cancelled the planning permit of one and changed the law to kill off another.
Councils and developers are still struggling to come to terms with new rules put in place last year, which require a signed community benefits agreement with councils and a social impact assessment before development applications are lodged.
The changes are causing jitters among investors, which by the end of 2025 were fleeing the sunshine state.
Working with councils
The work developers have to do before they get to the development application stage includes negotiating with councils who are scrambling to work out what they want from community benefit agreements.
Some councils, such as Isaac which is south of the Whitsunday area, were quick off the mark and already have fully formed policies on what they wanted to see from developers, others are still figuring it all out.
Renewable Energy Partners may need to negotiate with two councils for its Lake Dalrymple project.
The route in is via the Charter Towers regional council, which is reasonably supportive of new energy projects.
Among the key regional projects it lists on the council website are Windlab’s Gawara Baya wind project, formerly known as the Upper Burdekin which was a target of the now defunct Rainforest Reserves Australia, the Copper String transmission project and a giga-scale data centre hub.
The bulk of the project is in the Whitsunday area, whose regional council is under pressure to figure out a policy on community benefits quickly.
In a March meeting, the council said it was working on the problem and in late May was able to start consultation on the ideas it had put together.
It suggested Whitsunday residents might consider housing, roads, jobs, environmental programs, near neighbour mitigation measures and long-term funding streams for community groups as priorities.
But these will not appease a newly-formed wind farm opposition group, the Whitsunday Wind Farm Action Group which has a slick website and active Facebook group, which is opposing Alinta’s two-section Mt Challenger wind project right next to the town of Proserpine.
Earlier this year, the group asked the council to refuse to sign a community benefits agreement with Alinta and decline to approve a meteorological mast application, and acknowledge the “overwhelming community opposition” to the project.
The council responded by saying legally it has to follow planning rules and cannot preemptively refuse to engage in the benefits process.
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