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  How Darling Downs became a green powerhouse
Race to renewables:
In the space of a few short years, the Darling Downs and southwest Queensland has turned from CSG giant to one of the centres of the state’s renewable energy shift. This is how it got there, and the challenges it still faces.
Darling Downs is a microcosm of the energy battle that rages across the political spectrum. It’s a region caught in, and representative of, Australia’s awkward transition into a new age of power generation.
While coal and gas still form a vital part of how we keep the lights on, renewable energy is a burgeoning industry with the area hosting some of the biggest solar and wind projects in the southern hemisphere.
Industry lobbyists like Ali Davenport, the Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise CEO, sees the region as the future energy capital of Australia , where both renewables and fossil fuels combine to power the country.
Darling Downs’ embrace of renewables goes back years.  AGL was the first to explore the possibilities in 2000, later building an $850 million wind warm. Now an even bigger project is on its way.
ACCIONA Energia's new $2 billion MacIntyre Wind Precinct will generate more than 1000 megawatts of energy and create about 700 jobs across the Southern Downs. 
It will be one of the biggest wind farms in the southern hemisphere when completed.
Western Downs Mayor Paul McVeigh said his region had more than 24 wind, solar and green hydrogen projects either approved, in construction or completed in the past six years.
Western Downs Mayor Paul McVeigh
“  
We have 23 approved solar farms in the Western Downs, ranging in size from 20MW to 1000MW... six of those are either completed or under construction, and we have discussions every week with people wanting to develop a solar farm.
University of  Southern Queensland Associate Professor Andreas Helwig said to make the sector sustainable in the long term, Australia needed to develop its own manufacturing industry.
"We don’t make large inverters, we don’t have a battery industry here, and it is a sector where we are at the end of the industrial supply chain," he said. 
Producer: Anthony Lucas
Words:  Tom Gillespie, Michael Nolan and Will Hunter

Original URL: https://www.thechronicle.com.au/web-stories/free/the-chronicle-toowoomba/how-darling-downs-became-green-powerhouse-2