DELAYED START: No work on Daintree microgrid power project until next year

DAINTREE MICROGRID

David Gardiner

Journalist

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An artist’s image of the planned eight megawatt solar farm at Cow Bay, the main generation site for the Daintree Microgrid. Picture: Volt Advisory Group

The Daintree community have been told work on their promised electricity microgrid will not start until next April – mainly because of Cyclone Jasper damage.

There’s been a string of delays, including environmental approvals and the weather, since the Volt Advisory Group was, before the 2022 election, given a grant by the previous federal government to build the microgrid.

Volt Advisory director Richard Schoenemann has told Newsport technicians had been up in the area at the end of last year to finalise plans so work could start this year in April – but then Cyclone Jasper struck and disrupted their schedule.

Revelations that roads including Cape Tribulation Rd had been severely damaged and would take many months to be fully restored and repaired, forced Volt Advisory to reschedule their groundwork. 

Because of the need to get heavy machinery into the area – including a 100-tonne crane – Volt now has to wait until a further year, after the next wet season.

“At this stage the revised plan is for construction to commence in April after the wet season, after the roads are open on the Alex (Alexandra) range so that we can access the sites with our machinery,” Mr Schoenemann said.

“In order to conduct the works and for the generation site, to lift some of it on, it does involve a very large crane which will lift the equipment into place and minimise the disturbance overall, make sure it’s a quick process.”

Much of the microgrid work will involve setting up a solar farm and other infrastructure at Cow Bay.

“The DA-approved central generation site is a cleared cattle farm. It’s been cleared for many decades, it’s not visible from the main road, so people won’t see that it’s there, it’s gone through all the environmental approvals, we’re not removing any vegetation in order to produce the power on that site,” he said.

“It’s approximately eight megawatts of solar, so it’s enough for the community, to basically create the power on site, store it, distribute it to residents and businesses in the Daintree.”

The project includes an underground cable network, which will be placed under existing roads and easements.

The Cow Bay generation station, which Volt Advisory calls “a 100% renewable microgrid”, will comprise the solar farm, battery storage, containerised electrical switchgear, and a containerised hydrogen electrolyser and fuel cell.

Volt Advisory confident of community support

There has been some cynicism about the project, right from how the grant was made to the company without a tender in the first place, to the actual demand and viability, costs, and possible hesitancy in gaining investment to make up further funding needed aside from the $18.75-million government grant.

But Volt Advisory said it is confident the project has enough support to see it built and supplying power to the remote Daintree community.

“We know that we’ve had overwhelming support from certainly the bulk of the businesses and many residential customers that reach out to us and I think the cyclone, having to helicopter fuel in and also roll barrels of fuel in off the beach at Cape Tribulation, off the barge, really showed the need for resilient infrastructure in the area – and why they need a better source of power rather than relying on fuels especially when the roads are cut,” Mr Schoenemann said.

Currently a majority of power in the Daintree comes from individually owned generators, with some solar as well.

“It’s challenging for the people who have to run their own standalone systems, especially the businesses, challenging for them to service the systems, to operate the systems, to change over the filters in them every couple of weeks, they have to maintain them, one drops out and they’re out of power and they have to go back to some other measures," he said.

“It certainly is a very hands-on process and very costly as well.

“Unfortunately when things like when road access is cut due to natural disasters, it does put a blip in the process but we’re working our hardest to make sure that we can get it delivered as soon as possible for the community that really needs this."

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