Premier Peter Malinauskas’s plan to make SA a green energy superpower

Premier Peter Malinauskas will spearhead a three-day economic summit in a bid to supercharge his plan to capitalise on the green industrial revolution.

A three-day economic summit in the Upper Spencer Gulf will be staged by Premier Peter Malinauskas in a bid to supercharge his $1bn-plus investment for the state to become a world leader in green iron, copper and renewable hydrogen energy.

Positioning the region’s industrial revival as the linchpin of his year’s economic agenda, Mr Malinauskas will use the late February summit to outline the case for taxpayer funds to help kickstart green iron production, at Whyalla steelworks, and BHP’s proposed copper expansion.

In an interview with the Sunday Mail, Mr Malinauskas said SA’s renewable energy resources and stocks of magnetite – an ore crucial for green iron and steel production – provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity

“In combination with the existing steel works, a major magnetite resource and the copper resource (of) Olympic Dam and surrounds, we have the chance to reindustrialise the Upper Spencer Gulf of our state, through the decarbonisation of global industry, to actually generate new sources of wealth for the people of South Australia,” he said.

“We have to have the ambition as a state to look at the global decarbonisation exercise as an economic opportunity for future generations, which is exactly why the state government has been zeroing in on developing a comprehensive economic strategy to realise that opportunity in the Upper Spencer Gulf.”

Premier Peter Malinauskas will stage a three-day economic summit in the Upper Spencer Gulf. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

Mr Malinauskas said the economic summit would “start the journey of the realisation of those aspirations” by engaging with the community.

The premier believes Whyalla is ideally placed to use electricity from a government-backed hydrogen power plant to manufacture green iron, a precursor to steel, to export to major overseas steel producers to enable them to decarbonise their operations.

Public forums from February 25-27 at Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie will hear the state has a rare combination of coincident wind and sun to fuel green hydrogen production, along with vast resources of copper – a crucial component for renewable energy technology like electric vehicles.

Mr Malinauskas will argue for public spending on a $593m hydrogen power plant, near Whyalla, and ploughing hundreds of millions of dollars into an environmental impact study (EIS) to assess a desalination plant, providing water through a 600km pipeline network for projects headlined by BHP’s copper plans.

Further public investment in building the desal plant and pipeline network likely will follow if the EIS deems the project viable, along with a substantial contribution from BHP.

The economic summit is expected to follow the release of a business case, a precursor to the EIS, into the desal plant project.

A state government-supplied map showing the key projects for the economic summit.

Whyalla is switching from coal-based steelmaking to using electricity, using supply from the nearby government-owned hydrogen power plant opening in 2026, fuelled with renewable energy.

BHP believes SA can become one of the world’s biggest copper miners, producing as much as $6bn annually to satisfy surging global demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy.

The plans embrace Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill, Oak Dam and Carrapateena. BHP also wants to expand its Olympic Dam copper smelter.

A desal plant would replace BHP’s reliance on drawing water from the Great Artesian Basin, as well as supplying the Whyalla power plant’s electrolysers to turn water into hydrogen.

People can register for the economic summit at www.dpc.sa.gov.au/USG

Originally published as Premier Peter Malinauskas’s plan to make SA a green energy superpower