Cost of controversial Borumba Dam hydro powerlines revealed
The expected cost of a controversial plan to run hundreds of kilometres of high voltage powerlines from a proposed multibillion-dollar pumped hydro plant near Gympie, sparking community outrage, has been revealed.
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A controversial plan to link a proposed pumped hydro dam at Borumba to two Wide Bay Burnett power stations with hundreds of kilometres of high voltage powerlines is expected to cost more than $1.27 billion.
The plan will run lines from the site of the proposed Borumba Dam pumped hydro plant in the Mary Valley to substations at Woolooga, about 35km west of Gympie, and Halys in the South Burnett.
A new report by the Queensland Audit Office, tabled in parliament Monday, revealed building the 90km of powerlines between Borumba Dam and Woolooga would cost $682 million.
Running the lines 106km from the dam to Halys would cost $593 million.
These two projects, part of stage one of a proposed state “SuperGrid” were still in “early works”, with the Halys connection to be finished by 2030 and the Woolooga to be linked up by 2031.
The plans to run the powerlines from the dam to the substations, by way of towns including Widgee, Kilkivan, and Manumbar sparked controversy and protests when they were initially announced in 2022.
The lines form part of the wider Borumba Dam proposal, which is listed in the report at a cost of $14.2 billion but which is claimed to have blown out by at least $4 billion.
The state government has budgeted $935.9 million to be spent on the dam in 2024-25, the report said.
Early works on the proposed pumped hydro plant are underway “while Queensland Hydro seeks regulatory approvals, with the environmental impact statement approvals expected by late 2025”.
The projects are part of a wider spend across the Wide Bay found by the Audit Office found to be among the highest in Queensland.
The report says spending on capital works projects in the Wide Bay from 2021-2025 was, on average, the second highest of the state’s 13 major regions, behind only Brisbane and Redlands.
It recorded the third highest average spend per person in that same time (just below $5000 per person), trailing only the rate of investment in Outback Queensland and Central Queensland.
Spending in the region was not finished, either.
“The 2024–25 budget included significant increases in capital expenditure for Wide Bay (102 per cent) and Mackay-Whitsunday (117 per cent),” the report said.
“These are for hydro-electricity storage, transmission infrastructure, and wind farms.”
The new figures were accompanied by wider findings the state government needed more transparency around major capital works programs across Queensland.
“We identified a lack of consistency in the naming of projects and programs between budget years, and in the presentation of projects or programs,” the Office’s report says.
“This may make them difficult to compare.
“We also noted that the capital statement does not indicate the estimated project completion dates or categorise whether projects are new, ongoing, or completed.”
“If the project has a defined budget that spans multiple financial years, it is expected that the total estimated cost will reflect the approved budget.
“We have identified inconsistencies between prior and current year capital statements for disclosures of total estimated costs for projects.
“This lack of consistency makes it difficult for readers to understand the total cost of a project.”
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