Western Australia has taken a nation-leading stance on community benefits, with an idea that may solve consultation fatigue before it starts.
The state’s new community benefits guidelines creates a new role of fund custodian that will negotiate with developers and implement communities’ plans for the funds.
An independent organisation will help communities decide on their preferred plan, once, and developers will negotiate with the custodian over rates.
Western Australia councils have been begging the state to provide clarity over community benefits for several years.
In the absence of any guide several councils, led by the Narrogin shire council, have been trying creative ways to introduce these into planning approvals – although with no success.
The new guide almost matches the dollar value recommendations used by New South Wales, and makes at least an in-principle commitment to following it a requirement for lodging a development application.
Copy and paste
To kick it all off, PoweringWA is running a pilot with councils in the Central Coast and Southern Wheatbelt shires – including the vocal Narrogin council whose advocacy helped to push the state towards designing a community benefits guide.
That pilot will then make its methods, protocols and plan structures available to other shires as templates.
The new custodians will be the existing Regional Development Commissions, the nine regional government bodies charged with supporting economic development, and they will be responsible for making sure funds are managed transparently.
The value for a megawatt of wind and solar may disappoint councils in the state, as they’re lower than those set in NSW in late 2024 which some have been pushing developers, and the state, to copy.
WA has set the “recommended value” for batteries at $125 per megawatt (MW) per year, choosing to pay by megawatt rather than megawatt hour so long duration batteries aren’t disincentivised.
For solar it’s $750/MW for projects bigger than 10 MW, but for wind things become a little more complicated, in order to incentivise bigger developments.
The NSW rates are $850 per megawatt (MW) per year for solar over the life of the project, $1050/MW per year for wind, and $150/MWh per year for battery energy storage systems (BESS), all indexed to CPI.
Carve outs
The guidelines have some major carveouts, however.
It’s only for projects which will connect to the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), the grid that covers the southern portion of the state.
It excludes transmission.
And the state plans to set up separate guidelines for projects in the North-West Interconnected System (NWIS) and those that are off-grid.
Anything less than 10 MW need not worry, nor batteries on land that isn’t zoned as rural or generation set up to power, say, a town.
And it doesn’t apply to batteries that are part of hybrid projects.
The guidelines are also strict about what the funds can’t be used for: they’re not for regular local government expenses nor to fix issues such as road damage or dust which are the responsibility of developers.
Government pleased with its guide
The state government says its guideline sets “clear expectations for developers” and also frame how they should work with local governments, Native Title holders, and other community representatives.
“This guideline ensures that, as WA builds the infrastructure we need to deliver our sustainable energy future, we are also supporting the communities that host new renewable energy projects,” said energy minister Amber-Jade Sanderson.
The Western Australian government did not respond to a request for comment.
Community benefits work best when people can see a distinct link between clean energy projects and new programs, services or infrastructure established in the area, said Clean Energy Council CEO Jackie Trad.
“These guidelines will help Western Australia deliver tangible local outcomes for host communities and residents,” she said.
“We look forward to supporting the pilot and providing feedback as the scheme develops before it is deployed to additional areas.”
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