A new Climate Energy Finance (CEF) report puts common-user electricity grid infrastructure (CUI) at the heart of the decarbonisation of Australia’s lucrative iron ore ‘food bowl’ in the Western Australia Pilbara region.
The report, called Superpowering-up, says the Pilbara currently sources 2% of its electricity from renewables, hindered by “fragmented corporate energy production and grid transmission structures’.
It says mining majors such as BHP Iron Ore rely on burning 2.4 billion litres/year of subsidised, high emissions imported diesel and fossil gas for energy demand in the Pilbara.
“Replacing this requires 16.66 TWh/year of electricity, equivalent to 7.8% of Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). This could be increasingly supplied by locally generated, zero-emissions firmed renewable energy,” the report said.
In 2023, the state government received $3 billion (USD 1.9 billion) from the federal government’s Rewiring the Nation fund to upgrade the North West Interconnected System (NWIS), which includes the Burrup Peninsula Common User Grid Extension and the South West Interconnected System (SWIS).
Image: Horizon Power
CEF Net Zero Transformation Analyst and lead author Matt Pollard CUI would leverage opportunities the global transition to net zero offers for renewables-intensive processing of green iron and critical minerals, seeing it as the foundation of Australia’s potential as a zero-emissions trade and investment leader.”
Key recommendations of the report include strategic national-interest public investment under the Future Made in Australia Act to catalyse private capital investment into a CUI and create economies of scale; streamlined approvals for grid and clean energy infrastructure; and First Nations equity participation in energy project developments.
Clean Energy Investor Group interim Chief Executive Officer Marilyne Crestias said measures such as a Pilbara CUI will offer certainty to investors.
“Failure to embrace these measures risks positioning Australia as a laggard in the global race to decarbonise, potentially missing out on crucial strategic export opportunities,” Crestias said.
Proponents of the report welcomed a Western Australian government statement that the Pilbara’s first major transmission line to deliver clean electricity to the Burrup Peninsula is progressing.
The statement said the Pilbara Maitland-Karratha-Burrup line will provide the template for future common use renewable infrastructure to support the region’s decarbonisation.
Western Australia Energy Minister Reece Whitby said the government wants to see Western Australia at the forefront of the global energy transition.
“To do that, we must decarbonise the Pilbara, which has for decades driven our state’s economic success and will continue to do so as demand for green steel, battery metals, and clean hydrogen exports grows,” Whitby said.
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