Could the answer to Western Australia’s medium-term power problems lie on the forest floor?
Could the answer to Western Australia’s medium-term power problems lie on the forest floor?
It seems at least two companies believe so, drawing up plans for up to four ‘green’ or biomass power stations with a combined output reaching almost 150MW, fuelled largely by plantation by-products like thinnings and harvest wastage.
Beacons Consulting International Pty Ltd is the most ambitious proponent with plans for three power stations, each costing $80 million and with an individual gross capacity of almost 40MW, while investment bank Babcock & Brown has plans for a 30MW plant at Bunbury.
Both have secured development agreements with the State Government’s Forest Products Commission, which, if they came to fruition, would underpin at least two power stations, the one near Bunbury and another at Neerabup close to Wesbeam’s new laminated veneer lumber operation.
New legislation has been introduced to allow the FPC to enter into contracts longer than 10 years without a State Agreement, allowing the proposed residue arrangements to match existing arrangements to take the core timber products, such Wesbeam’s 25-year State Agreement.
A spokeman for WA Energy Minister Eric Ripper said the projects would most likely be bidding for Renewable Energy Credits which Western Power had to buy as part of a national scheme.
“There is a raft of people competing for those,” he said.
WA Sustainable Energy Association chairman Matthew Rosser played down any expectations of imminent announcements but confirmed there was a lot of activity in renewable energy.
“There is no shortage of projects,” Mr Rosser told WA Business News.
“WA has an abundance of renewable energy resources but the structure of the energy industry, with a monopoly, doesn’t facilitate the introduction of independent operators.”
The new proposals come at a time when there is significant uncertainty in the State’s energy sector, with jostling over the future of the industry.
Western Power has environmental approval for a 120MW gas-fired station at Kwinana and five bidders remain in the running for its 300MW proposed base-load station, though it will not build a separate 240MW base-load station at Cockburn.
The machinations in the power industry continued at the weekend when it was revealed that Kerry Stokes’ Australian Capital Equity was a 50 per cent partner in Western Energy Pty Ltd, which planned a new 120MW power station at Kwinana.
Western Energy is a 50/50 joint venture with Ky Cao’s Perth Energy.
It is not Mr Stokes’ first venture into energy. Another ACE company, Westrac, owns a stake in Landfill Gas and Power Pty Ltd, a Perth-based company that produces up to 9MW already and will have capacity of 12MW by early next year.
Another proposed player in the renewable energy market is Blair Fox Generation, which has approval for a 10MW power plant powered by poultry litter. There are also several wind-farm proposals.
Forest Products Commission business development project officer Ian Rotheram said the FPC had been dealing with Beacons and Babcock & Brown since 2002 when it sought proposals for the use of the residues.
“We have selected two companies and have development agreements to firm up a proposal because there were a lot of unknowns about the economics of using residues,” he said.
Mr Rotheram said prices had yet to be struck for the residues, which would come from 20,000 hectares of pines situated above the Gnangara aquifer and 30,000ha of pines in several plantations in a 100-kilometre radius around Bunbury.
