Developers of renewable energy and storage projects need to start owning the problems they create in communities, says new Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner (AEIC) Tony Mahar.
Renewable energy projects are creating motivated opposition in ways similar to the powerful – and extremely effective – Shut The Gate coal seam gas protests in the 2010s, but many developers and governments don’t appear to have learned those lessons about how communities want to be treated.Â
Mahar says senior executives have to start fronting up to repair friction caused by the fear of the unknown.
“The companies, and it’s also probably the state government planning departments… [have] got to go there and show your face and own up and own the problem,” he told Renew Economy in an interview at the sidelines of the Australian Wind Energy 2025 conference last week.
“[Communities] want the senior people. They don’t want the graduates, they don’t want the interns. They want senior people out there to hear them and listen to them, and that is the first step.”
Some objectors are “not for turning”, but Mahar says there are portions of any community who, if listened to and provided opportunities to learn, will be open to hearing about the ways their community could benefit from energy infrastructure.
He believes even communities such as those in Victoria’s Kiewa Valley, where a battery proposal had neighbours crossing the street to avoid each other, can be brought back together.
“But it’ll be a task,” he says.
And it will require courage: anecdotally, some developers in particularly febrile areas in Victoria are no longer running large community meetings because of potential, or perceived, risk to staff.
Capacity building part of developer remit
The former National Farmers Federation chief executive officer says he spent the first six months of his job travelling Australia to speak to communities.Â
He found supportive towns, such as Hughendon in central Queensland which is keen for investment, and he found pockets of populated areas of New South Wales and Victoria are at DEFCON 1.
“It’s extreme in some pockets right there, the community is motivated and activated in a coordinated way to oppose anything to do with renewable energy,” he says.
Engaging with them requires face to face meetings as well as the usual suite of webinars, but also community information hubs like those being pitched by Re-Alliance and, crucially, showing people how to navigate the planning process.
Mahar believes there is real value in developers teaching people how to write a useful submission that articulates their concerns.
“Assistance to actually help people to understand and then put in informed views. I think that’s what everyone wants…. I don’t think they just want letters saying we don’t want your wind farm or your solar farm,” he says.
“It’s not helpful.
“If you can say, here’s why I don’t want it, here’s what I think might help. Here’s my real concerns around flora and fauna, or biodiversity, here’s what I’m talking about.”
In New South Wales (NSW), a glance through the public submissions on any renewable energy project shows just how few people understand how to make a useful contribution during the planning process. Many submitters use template letters that don’t outline any concerns that are relevant to the site they’re talking about, nor offer any realistic alternatives.
In one instance, a submitter forgot to change the name of the project he was opposing in a letter about a solar farm in Gulgong, NSW.
There is also real independent data out there now, most recently from the NSW ombudsman, that communications can build on as it shows exactly what people are concerned about – from lowball offers to worries about fire risks.
Planning processes could be tilted
The balance between getting a job done and working with communities must be even, but there are elements of the planning process that Mahar says could be tipped further towards the latter.
One is that the length of time that environmental impact statements – enormous reports which include highly technical information – are open for public consultation should be longer.
“Thirty days for an EIS might sound reasonable, but when you’re talking about a large level of concern within the community, I think we have to look at the timeframe and the capacity of the community to engage in these processes. I’m not sure we’ve got it right,” Mahar says.
“It can’t be too long, but to get the balance right there’s got to be absolutely checks and balances, because that’s what’s concerning the community, that these things are just put in place, and a whole range of things, environmental, social, economic issues aren’t adequately considered.”
And with councils only just beginning to form policies on pressing issues such as workforce accommodation – Muswellbrook in NSW was one of the first on the east coast to do look at this issue and that was in late June – planning laws sometimes don’t have the flexibility to handle the issues communities are already feeling.
The cumulative impacts of multiple projects in one area is one of these issues that planning processes are only just catching up with.
In Western Australia, planning authorities declined to take note of policies put in place by the Narrogin shire council while making a decision on planning permits for two batteries and a solar farm, saying the state government had to provide the new directions.
Mahar is trying to find a better way to glue industry and communities together, and believes there could be a role for his office to be an intermediary.
But ultimately it’s a communications job: deliver targeted messages in the right way via multiple methods.
And it’s one that industry and governments need to start learning quickly.
“It’s… played a part in the bringing down of prime ministers or governments. We have lessons of how not to do it right now,” he says.
“We have an opportunity to do the comms better, and it’s not just pumping information out. It’s listening and it’s showing and it’s learning from the mistakes.”
