The federal government has agreed to cover the multi-million-dollar cost of connecting what will be one of the world's biggest wind farm precincts to Australia's power grid.
Its investment arm, the Clean Energy and Finance Corporation (CEFC), has committed $160 million to connect the Southern Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), to the national electricity market.
The REZ currently consists of two projects in the Southern Downs — the 103-megawatt Karara Wind Farm, controlled by state government-owned renewable generator CleanCo, and the 923MW Macintyre Wind Farm, owned and operated by renewable energy firm Acciona.
It requires 65 kilometres of overhead transmission lines and two switching stations to be connected to the energy market.
Powerlink – the company in charge of managing and running Queensland's power network – began constructing the infrastructure in March.
Queensland Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said CEFC will absorb the cost and that the new investment would unlock up to 500MW of network hosting capacity.
"Connecting the massive project to the national grid not only unlocks $2 billion worth of investment, it also boosts reliability of power across the three east Australian states, with clean Queensland-made energy," he said.
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the investment was a "game changer".
"A better future is powered by cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy," he said
"This CEFC investment is a game changer when it comes to hooking these new sources up to the grid … and we want to see more of it," he said.
This is the first partnership between a Queensland government-owned company and the CEFC.
Wind farm to be operational by 2024
Federal Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said it would increase renewable supplies to households and businesses in southern Queensland and the east-coast of Australia.
"The best way to put downward pressure on energy prices is to ramp up investment in renewables, transmission and storage and that is exactly what this $160 million commitment will do," Mr Bowen said.
The Macintyre wind farm precinct is expected to be operational in 2024.
Mr Chalmers did not commit to a time frame on when households and businesses would benefit from the infrastructure.
"Clearly, projects of this size and this significance can't be turned on overnight and require some kind of run-up.
"But what this investment means [is] it will be delivered faster than otherwise," he said.
Queensland Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said the "first of its kind" agreement was a "landmark partnership" to improve electricity affordability.
"What it's [federal funding] enabled is us to get on and build it much more quickly and it's enabled us to build it in a way that allows an additional solar farm and wind farm to potentially come in much, much sooner," Mr de Brenni said.
"This project is in construction as we speak … there are wind turbines going into place today."
"This will be power available for Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria."
