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An online survey of nearly 800 households about renewable projects has found that the broader community in regional Queensland is far less concerned about their development than first thought.
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Survey data showed more than 70 per cent of respondents were in favour of solar farm expansion, less than 25pc supported the expansion of wind-only projects, and between 51pc and 75pc supported the development of combined wind and solar projects.
At a Queensland Community Energy Forum in Calliope on Wednesday, November 4, organised by Coexistence Queensland, speakers included councillors, cattle producers, academics, public servants and developers.
To an audience of about 70, Central Queensland University Professor John Rolfe detailed the results of the online survey, which covered the attitudes of regional Queensland towards the development of renewable energy.
“What they thought the trade-offs were in terms of things like jobs and visual amenity, the contribution to renewable energy power and whether people were prepared to pay for it,” he said.
“And how their concerns about these different factors would be reflected in their willingness to pay through their power bills.”
Professor Rolfe told Queensland Country Life the survey of 794 people was for regional Queensland generally, but they did also talk to landholders.
“Landholders are generally much more concerned about renewable energy, they’re concerned about the visual impacts, they don’t like the loss of agricultural land, those sort of things,” he said.
“There are some landholders of course who’ve got financial agreements and are more in favour, others don’t care as much, but generally we found stronger levels of concern with landholders than we did with the broader community.”
Cattle producers Philip and Claire Mann, Wycheproof, Calliope, said they came to the forum because they wanted to find out more about renewable projects as they were looking at options to diversify with a definite income, and were contemplating hosting a solar farm.
So far, the Manns have been approached by 35 different renewable companies to host mainly solar farms because they have two additional transmission lines on their property. Only one approach was solely wind.
“But we quickly told them we don’t want wind,” Ms Mann said.
Ms Mann said there were a lot of changes happening in state and local government processes in relation to renewables.
“The way they’ve done the development application – that used to go through the local government, now it’s the state government, and we’re just wanting to educate ourselves (about) what’s happening,” she said.
“That’s where you’ve really got to cross your t’s and dot your i’s with your contract.”
Mr Mann said they wanted to know things like who was responsible for the clean-up at the end of the day when the project was decommissioned.
“Really, the nitty gritty, as in what happens once it’s all over, what gets pulled out, what gets left behind, and things like that,” Ms Mann said.
The Manns also have concerns about biosecurity around weeds.
Mr Mann said the reaction to renewables among landholders was fairly mixed in their region.
“A lot of them are of the opinion if it’s … your land, you do what you want to do with it if it’s legal,” he said.
“You get your best return out of the area of land that you possibly can, but I suppose others think ‘if you’re benefiting from that, then why shouldn’t we’.
“But the proponents we’ve talked to have certainly been offering … generous packages to neighbours that may be affected by the project.”
As a key survey researcher, Professor Rolfe said one of the issues that was really important to the broader regional Queensland community was trust.
“That came out really clearly, it was really important that local communities were consulted,” he said.
“The other big thing that came through was that there should be benefits at the local level from these developments.
“It shouldn’t just be that big projects go up, they produce power and it benefits urban areas.
“There’s got to be some level of benefits to local and regional communities as part of the process for these new developments.”
On the issue of the impact of renewable projects on neighbouring landholders, Professor Rolfe said they only dealt with that topic indirectly.
“There’s been two approaches, so you can see some of the wind farms in the hinterland of the Rockhampton region that have been developed where there’s agreements that cover the neighbours as well as the direct owners,” he said.
“But most of the projects only compensate the direct owners (and) this is an issue that I hear about all the time, that there’s not anything that benefits people outside of that direct footprint.
“And I think that’s what’s needed – either compensation agreements that cover the neighbours or compensation effects that generate jobs and other community benefits locally.”
Professor Rolfe said the survey reviewed all the projects that were coming through in Queensland.
“Not all of them will be built, but there’s about 130 solar projects on the books and about 70 wind projects,” he said.
“That’s a huge amount of electricity potentially generated across the state.
“The areas where most of the proposals are … the Darling Downs, in the central Queensland region, so the Rockhampton, Gladstone, Biloela areas, and then in the Townsville out to the Mount Isa region.”
Professor Rolfe also pointed out that Queensland had the youngest coal-fired power stations in Australia and that there was a growing demand for power because of the state’s growing population.
“We tend to export power down to the southern states,” he said.
“So my view is that … coal-fired power stations will be around for longer in Queensland and that a lot of the growth in the renewable generation will just add to the power available in the state rather than replacing coal-fired generation.
“Stanwell’s the youngest power station … so I would think that we’ll see some of them out to 2050 … there’s a whole generation yet before we’ll see the loss of all of them.”
Professor Rolfe said some people said the survey did not consider all the energy options and that governments should consider gas, nuclear and other forms of power generation.
“We didn’t evaluate them, except to note that the community has a wider view that we should be more agnostic about where the power is generated from,” he said.
“We were focused on the extent to which the broader community supported renewables and what they thought the bigger trade-offs were.”
As to the mantra from politicians that renewables were cheaper to generate leading to lower power prices, Professor Rolfe said they were really upfront about the cost in the survey.
“We said in the survey that there’s options to have more renewables, but it comes at more cost,” he said.
“So we didn’t try to beat around the bush, we said ‘this is costly, you can’t build all that infrastructure without somebody paying for it.’
“We pay for it in two ways, so part of it’s power prices, but a lot of it is through just general taxation revenue that the government then uses to fund … the transmission lines and other infrastructure, which they need to make this work.
“So that’s where the real payment by householders is – it’s through general taxation, rather than just through power prices, but it’s a bit of both.”
Professor Rolfe said he did not comment on the politics of the issue, but added that anyone saying renewables would bring power prices down was not telling the truth.
“It takes a certain way of looking at the numbers to come up with that conclusion,” he said.
“The generation costs can be quite cheap at certain times of the day, but the capital costs of producing everything and making it all work, getting it all installed, that’s the killer.”
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