Former West Australian premier Brian Burke is among a growing list of potential bidders looking to develop a major renewable energy project in the state's coal heartlands.
Mr Burke, who was premier during the height of the WA Inc. saga in the 1980s, is involved with an entity known as Collie Pumped Hydro, which wants to use coal voids to build a pumped hydro plant in Collie, 180 kilometres south of Perth.
Alongside him is Kevin Reynolds, a former union firebrand who ran the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in Western Australia until 2011.
Leading the venture is Frederik Suhren, a former lieutenant of fallen WA coal tycoon Ric Stowe whose business empire was anchored in Collie's coalfields when it collapsed in 2010.
The involvement of the trio comes amid efforts by a roll call of business and energy players in Western Australia to develop the state's first major pumped hydro project to replace retiring coal-fired power stations.
Crowded field eyes project
Chief among them was billionaire Kerry Stokes, whose Seven Group is reported to have pitched plans to the state government in 2020 to build a pumped hydro project using old coal mines to store water.
It is understood the proposal by Seven Group, the $6.7 billion conglomerate that sprawls across mining equipment, fossil fuels and media interests, was not successful and the company is no longer pursuing the idea.
Under a plan announced in June, the WA Labor government said it would close its remaining coal plants in Collie by 2029 and replace the capacity with a mixture of renewable technologies.
Key to those plans is pumped hydro, which works by pumping water uphill from one reservoir to another when energy prices are low and releasing the water downhill through a turbine to produce power when prices are high.
West Australian Energy Minister Bill Johnston has said such "deep storage" would be crucial to the green energy transition to ensure the lights stay on when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.
Early estimates suggest the project, which would have a capacity between 400MW and 800MW, will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Attempts by the federal government to build the 2,000MW Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped hydro project are tipped to cost at least $10 billion and be several years late.
Seven Group's interest in developing a pumped hydro project in Collie was revealed last year but, up until now, the broader list of contenders has been unknown.
As well as Mr Stokes and the entity linked to Mr Burke, major gas pipeline firm Jemena has also been considering a potential tilt at a development.
Burke involvement 'no disadvantage'
And the state government has confirmed it is looking at a proposal through its utilities the Water Corporation and power provider Synergy.
Despite their similarities, the competing bids are understood to be separated by a critical difference.
While Jemena and the state utilities are believed to be exploring more conventional designs using existing reservoirs, the Collie Pumped Hydro plan — and the shelved Stokes plan — are reportedly so-called mine void developments.
The plans would involve converting disused coal mine pits into reservoirs, allowing the state and private operators to avoid rehabilitation obligations potentially costing more than $1 billion.
Collie Pumped Hydro chairman Mick Murray, a former long-serving Labor MP for the state seat of Collie, confirmed Mr Burke and Mr Reynolds had been involved with the firm but said they were not major players.
"They're far removed," Mr Murry said.
"Certainly the technical staff and the finances are far removed from Brian Burke and Kevin Reynolds.
"If there's knowledge to be used, you use it. But it's certainly not cloak-and-dagger stuff."
Coal pits 'ideal' for technology
Mr Murray explained Collie Pumped Hydro's proposal would involve building two 200MW turbines at the Muja coal pit, which he said was well suited to the technology because of the steepness of the void wall.
Construction would be expected to take about two years, generate about 300 jobs and cost almost $1 billion, he said.
"It's just about to a stage where we can put a solid proposal to the government," he said.
"But we need some support going forward from the government to say, 'Yes, we'll pick up your project'."
According to Mr Murray, the case for putting a pumped hydro plant in Collie was strong because of the relative suitability of the area's topography.
More importantly, he said, there were already high voltage power lines connecting Collie's coal-fired power plants to the grid, removing the need for expensive upgrades to transmission infrastructure.
Andrew Blakers, a director at the Australian National University's Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, said using old mine voids for pumped hydro was feasible and in many ways could provide an advantage given how deep many were.
However, Professor Blakers said there were downsides associated with mine pits, which were often contaminated with toxins and mud that could impair the generation equipment.
He said that although those problems could be overcome, for example by lining the pit to prevent contamination, any fixes would push up costs.
WA needs pumped hydro, expert says
In any case, he argued pumped hydro would be indispensable to any grid, including WA's, that was powered by renewable energy.
"The cost of pumped hydro — even mediocre pumped hydro sites — is a quarter or even a tenth of the cost of a battery for overnight storage," Professor Blakers said.
"And because Western Australia is headed to a solar-dominated system, you absolutely need overnight storage.
"End of story – you just need it. And to do that with batteries is just laughable."
Professor Blakers said the south-west of Western Australia was not well-suited to pumped hydro because it was relatively flat, but he believed such a disadvantage would be more than offset by the state's riches of wind and solar.
"Western Australia doesn't have a lot of choice," Professor Blakers said.
"But Western Australia has got great wind and great sun, so they're going to spend less on the generation but more on the storage than over east.
"So, it's swings and roundabouts.
"And they'll end up with very competitively priced electricity by world standards."
Gas pipeline giant flags interest
Jemena, which is Australia's second biggest gas pipeline operator, confirmed the company was looking at the feasibility of pumped hydro in WA's south-west.
However, it said planning was still at an early stage and there were no firm plans to go ahead with a proposal.
"The recent announcement by the West Australian government to transition out of coal will increase the requirement for firming capacity and pumped hydro generation will likely need to be a key contributor," a spokesman said.
"At this stage, the development is still in its infancy but appears promising.
"However there are still a number of commercial, technical, heritage, environmental and community hurdles that would need to be cleared before the project could be considered viable."
