Massive 70 GW wind and solar project that straddles Nullarbor seeks federal green tick

The world’s biggest wind and solar project, planned for a remote desert region in south-east of Western Australia, has joined the queue for federal environmental approval for plans to install 70 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity – equivalent the country’s main grid.

The Western Green Energy Hub – a joint venture of Singapore-based InterContinental Energy, international renewables outfit CWP Global, and a commercial subsidiary of Mirning Traditional Lands Aboriginal Corporation (MTLAC) called Mirning Green Energy Ltd (MGEL) – was opened to public comment on the EPBC portal this week.

The EPBC referral documents describe the proposed project as a large-scale wind and solar power project to produce value added products, with the base case assuming green ammonia production.

But the scope of the energy hub is mind boggling, including rollout of up to 35 “nodes” of around 2-3 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 woudl be implemented 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.

Other elements of the proposed Western Green Energy Hub (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 that would grow from accommodating an initial 100-300 workers 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.

It would be built in stages over 30 years and aims to produce 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year.

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 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.”

The WGEH EPBC referral documents are open to public comment until February 07 and can be found here.