University of Queensland emeritus professor Andrew Garnett presenting to Miles renewable energy forum.

A COMMUNITY forum in the coal seam gas heartland of Southern Queensland has demonstrated some clear angst about another competing land use coming into the area.

The town of Miles was the first of two Queensland Community Renewables Forums, aiming to bring local communities, landholders and the renewable energy industry into the same room to discuss how the rapidly growing industry is and should be rolling out in the area.

Miles was one of the main centres for the coal seem gas boom of the last decade, which saw concerns about competing land use, serious population growth and a big impact on infrastructure like major arterial roads. It also drove an economic boost to landholders and the community.

This week, there was a sense the community was going through it all again as they packed into the local hall armed with in-depth questions about contracts, regulations and anecdotes of their experiences with the coal seam gas companies.

Fronting the community were public servants, industry bodies, academics and renewable energy companies all aiming strike a pragmatic tone, particularly by recognising some of the wrongs of the past.

Kicking off the speakers was University of Queensland emeritus professor Andrew Garnett who gave a global and domestic look at the push towards renewable energy and unpacked global trends about energy security.

He said while renewable energy projects were happening across the world, anywhere with large scale wind and solar development was receiving pushback. Prof Garnett said a pragmatic approach was needed in the scale up of renewables in Australia.

“It’s not a race, you are not in competition with someone else to do it quicker than what they are doing it, it is important to get it right,” Prof Garnett said.

“We need much more pragmatism on the economic gain side, on the landholder relations side and much less zeal about renewables saving the world.”

One of the pressures on the pragmatic approach to the renewable energy rollout is that the Federal Government is already falling behind on its goal of having 80pc of the national electricity grid powered by renewables by 2035.

However, Prof Garnett said the biggest driver of the large-scale renewable energy rollout was the Government’s commitment.

He said while there were a lot bigger emitters than Australia that would need to reduce their emissions to make a difference in climate change, the main reason for Australia’s energy transition was about setting an example to the rest of the world.

“It’s not being driven by saving the Barrier Reef, it is not being driven by reducing the number of fires,” he said.

“But on the positive side there should be opportunities with a new industry.”

Developer code of conduct in the works

While there appeared to be a general feeling there was opportunity with the new industry coming to the area, there was also some concern about contracts and the conduct of developers.

One crowd member said some landholders in the area were spending a lot of time, money and emotion on due diligence for renewable energy projects that may never come to fruition. The fact a lot of projects won’t get up was s point made by many of the speakers too.

The Queensland Farmers Federation has been working with the Government to pull together a landholder toolkit to help with the negotiations.

Chief executive officer Jo Sheppard a code of conduct for developers was also in the works and expected to be finished by the end of the year.

“This is not a silver bullet, but it is an Australian first and it is mandatory to the point where you won’t get connected if you don’t meet minimum standards,” Ms Sheppard said.

Renewables targeting areas with existing power stations

Renewable energy developers have already been knocking on the door of producers in the Miles area and some big wind and solar farms are being built.

One of the main questions that has been raised is about why the area, which is already hosting the relatively new gas industry, has to host the renewable energy industry as well.

The answer was mainly about the Queensland Government targeting areas that are close to existing transmission lines and that the renewable rollout will focus on areas that have already built power stations.

“We are trying to minimise the amount of transmission that we need to build,” said Qld department of energy deputy director-general David Shankey.

“The reason the projects are coming here is because we have good transmission to Brisbane and a chance to export power to New South Wales.”

Mr Shankey said while renewable energy developers were actively proposing projects in the area and approaching landholders, there was a limit to the development.

“There is a limit on the transmission, which will put a limit on the number of projects we can have,” he said.

“Projects that have approached you or projects that the council are aware are way above what we are looking for in this area. There is probably 30 gig of projects being talked about and it is only a fraction of those that will get up.”

• The forum was a partnership between the Queensland Government, renewable energy peak body Queensland Renewable Energy Council (QREC) and the independent statutory body Coexistence Queensland (formerly GasFields Commission Queensland).