Reuben Richardson from North Queensland Engineering shares plans for new hydro project

A Townsville engineer and former Katter party candidate has outlined a plan for the proposed Hervey Range Pumped Hydro Project and is calling on the state and federal governments to back it.

Reuben Richardson shares plans for the proposed Hervey Range pumped hydro project.

A Townsville engineer and former Katter party candidate has outlined a plan for the proposed Hervey Range Pumped Hydro Project and it calling on the state and federal governments to back it.

Principal engineer of director of North Queensland Engineering Reuben Richardson, who also ran as the Katter Party’s Thuringowa candidate in the 2024 state election, unveiled the “scalable, cost-effective energy solution” which he says would enhance the stability of the energy grid and would integrate with renewable and battery projects such as Copperstring.

Reuben Richardson shares plans for the proposed Hervey Range pumped hydro project.

The project was the unveiled by Mr Richardson and members of the Hervey Range Pumped Hydro consortium including Anton Fitzgerald, Claire Driessen and Laurence Liessmann in Townsville on Monday.

Mr Richardson said the location of the Hervey Range was ideal due to its high elevation, natural basins and low evaporation.

With the capacity to store 150-330 gigalitres of water, the upper reservoir is located 500 metres above the lower reservoirs meaning better evaporation rates.

Mr Richardson said the proposed dam also has an “excellent volume to surface ratio”, with half the expected evaporation rates expected compared to the Ross River dam.

“We are currently proposing between 500MW and 1GW of power generation with between 150-300GWh of storage available once complete,” he said.

“To put it in perspective, the proposed Townsville Battery is 800MWh or 0.25-0.5% of the proposed dam while the Townsville Power Station has 242MW capacity.”

Project overview of the proposed Hervey Range Pumped Hydro Project

Hoping to solve three key issues including water storage capacity, mitigating the risk of flooding, and acting like a battery storing cheap energy for when it’s needed, Mr Richardson said the project would make Townsville “stronger and more resilient”.

“Current projections show we are heading for 300,000 residents in the next 20 years,” he said.

“The recent events would lead us to question if our current water assets are up to the task of protecting our city from floods and droughts today let alone sized for an additional 50% more residents.

23 June 2025 Townsville, Qld – Reuben Richardson and Bob Katter MP inspect the future location of the Hervey Range Pumped Hydro project – Photo: Cameron Laird

“Townsville has been hit hard by both floods and droughts — we’ve seen it time and time again, from the 2015 drought through to the recent 2019 and 2025 floods that caused $1.3 billion dollars of damage,” he said.

With Townsville’s population nearly doubling since the late 80s, Mr Richardson said the water storage levels have barely budged, only an additional 23 gigalitres.

Aerial photos of the location for the proposed hydro project in the Hervey Range.

“At the same time, energy prices are increasingly volatile as more solar and wind come online without enough storage to back it up.”

Mr Richardson also said the proposal would generate significant employment and economic benefits.

Aerial views of the location for the proposed Hydro project.

“This is a smart, future-proof project for Townsville,” he said.

“We are calling on all levels of government to get behind it and see what we can do for our region.”

Mr Katter said the project needs to be done to overcome Townsville’s flooding problems.

“I don’t know about other people but I am sick of walking around in water up to my knees in urban areas, suburban houses,” he said.

“This is a occurring fairly regularly and probably always has but because we’ve built all the houses the water can’t get away now.
“As we get more houses it gets worse and worse. This [project] absolutely needs to be done.”

Originally published as Reuben Richardson from North Queensland Engineering shares plans for new hydro project