The Miles government will sink $25 million into Queensland’s first plant to build large-scale batteries for the power grid, shrugging off a series of financial failures of battery-related companies in the state.

The investment – split roughly evenly between debt and equity – will go into the $70 million plant being developed in Maryborough in the Fraser Coast region north of Brisbane. It will manufacture iron flow batteries to be used at state government-owned electricity provider Stanwell Corporation.