Nationals MP hails “reliable” renewables as QNI link upgrade nears completion

A project to upgrade a power transmission link between Queensland and New South Wales and unlock and share cheap renewables more efficiently between the states is nearing completion, just under two years after it was given the regulatory green light.

NSW network operator Transgrid said on Wednesday that the Queensland-NSW Interconnector (QNI) project was on track for completion by May 2022, allowing for the flow of 190MW of additional energy, including renewables, from Queensland onto the NSW grid.

The NSW and federal governments provided $102 million of joint-underwriting to deliver the QNI upgrade after the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) first flagged it as a priority in the 2018 Integrated System Plan.

Transgrid executive manager of delivery, Craig Stallan, said the increased capacity would provide additional grid stability and enable more lower-cost solar and wind power to flow from where it’s generated “to where it’s most needed,” in northern NSW.

“The project is now 90 per cent complete. Over 300 kilometres of 330kV transmission lines have been uprated, 58 transmission towers were replaced and 131 existing towers have been uprated,” Stallan said

Of the five substation upgrades in the project, the upgrade in Tamworth – the birthplace and home base of Australia’s deputy PM and leader of the National Party, Barnaby Joyce – was the largest, with its footprint enlarged by 50 per cent to accommodate vital new infrastructure.

Joyce has, at best, a patchy policy history on climate and renewables – he told a doorstop last year that he and his National Party colleagues had “no problems with sections of renewables, we support sections of renewables.”

But under his leadership, the federal arm of the party has hitched its wagon firmly to the fossil fuel sector, and made it all but impossible for the federal Coalition government to get serious about climate change and renewables – even if it happened to be so inclined.

The New South Wales member for Tamworth, however, Nationals MP Kevin Anderson, has been broadly supportive of renewables, going on a quick background check, and hailed the news of the near completion of the QNI project as a guarantee of a “more reliable supply of electricity to customers at all times.”

We did notice, however (see screen shots below), that the NSW Nationals website did slightly tweak the headline, compared to Transgrid, giving it a more Nationals-friendly tone. Or are they calling renewables reliable? We’d like to think the latter…

“Since mid-2020, QNI has created 170 local jobs and local suppliers have been engaged in the construction, accommodation, fencing, safety, hygiene and hospitality sectors, to name a few,” Anderson said.

“Transgrid’s QNI upgrade will place downward pressure on the price of electricity for local mums and dads and also support new and existing renewable energy generation across the north-west.

“The NSW government priority is to continue to ensure affordable and reliable electricity for NSW energy consumers and supporting and creating jobs in the sector.”