Huge loan for massive job creating renewable energy project

Hundreds of fly-in, fly-out jobs will be available from Townsville after a hydro energy project was given a $610 million loan by the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

HUNDREDS of fly-in, fly-out jobs will be available from Townsville after a hydro energy project was given a $610 million loan by the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Construction on Genex Power’s Kidston Stage 2 Pumped Storage Hydro Project is expected to start in September once finance is secured.

There will be 500 jobs created during construction of the hydro project, with another 200 created through work on a transmission line.

Genex Power executive director Simon Kidston said the majority of workers would be sourced from Townsville, Cairns and Atherton Tablelands.

“We will do charter flights from Townsville to Kidston because we have the strip there already,” he said.

The jobs will be available through McConnell Dowell and John Holland who are the contractors for engineering, procurement and construction.

The development, about 270km north west of Townsville, is being built at an ex-gold mine site which already has an air strip.

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Electricity will be generated as water falls from the two old mining pits. It will then be pumped back to the upper pit by using power generated by the on site solar farm.

Mr Kidston said he expected worker to be on the ground by the end of September.

It is expected construction will take three years.

The transmission line from Mount Fox to the site was the final piece of the puzzle for the hydro project to begin.

Mr Kidston said Genex was working with the State Government on having this approved shortly.

AEC Group principal economist Matthew Kelly said the more jobs created the better for Townsville.

“We can certainly see the pipeline of things at the moment and the path to recovery,” he said.

Mr Kelly said although construction jobs did not last forever they did help keep the economy ticking over.

He said it was vital there were jobs available for Townsville people with projects like the Kidston hydro project.

“You would like to think we are in geographically good location for that as well as people having the required skills,” Mr Kelly said.

NAIF chief executive officer Laurie Walker said the Kidston Project investment represented slightly more than 12 per cent of NAIF’s total $5 billion facility.

“Energy storage facilities have a significant role to play in Australia’s transition to a low emissions, low cost energy future,” she said.

“The project will provide Far North Queensland with 250MW of firm, dispatchable energy, improving energy reliability while lowering transmission losses and electricity prices.

Resources and Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan said this was an exciting project for North Queensland that would create a long-term future for the north’s industries and households.

Originally published as Huge loan for massive job creating renewable energy project