March 20, 2024
A Victorian renewable energy company will be holding two community consultation meetings this week to outline its plan to build a battery energy storage system (BESS) at Ellesmere.
Akaysha Energy plans to build the battery system to store energy from wind and solar farms feeding power into Ergon’s Halys Substation.
The company will use existing transmission lines to feed power into the BESS and relay it back on to the grid when required.
A company spokesperson told southburnett.com.au Akaysha hopes to lodge a development application with the South Burnett Regional Council this month.
Akaysha Energy’s BESS will use Lithium Iron Phosphate cell technology which is less expensive and safer than lithium-ion technology.
The company hopes work to build the 500MW project will begin in 2025.
Akaysha have nine other BESS projects planned in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, SA and Tasmania including a BESS at Brendale in Brisbane, Wurdong and Ulinda Park in Queensland.
The company will be holding two community consultation meetings in Nanango and Kingaroy this Friday and Saturday to inform the public about their plans.
The first meeting will be held from 2:00pm to 5:00pm at the Nanango Cultural Centre on Friday (March 22), and the second meeting will be held from 10:00am to 1:00pm at Kingaroy RSL’s White Room on Saturday, March 23.
Note: Akaysha’s BESS is the second battery storage project planned for the South Burnett. Stanwell are also building a BESS at Tarong to handle output from the Tarong West Wind Farm.
[UPDATED]
Amazing how all these eyesores are in country areas. Put them near the greenies’ backyards and see how they react. I guess it is another case of out of sight out of mind.
No, no, no to renewables in the South Burnett.
The Kingaroy Solar Farm has affected sales of property in a negative way by people walking away from properties with the solar farm close to them. This will happen all over the South Burnett. They are using land that should be future food producers and are not in any way an asset for our town.
The spiel that it will give work to locals is a farce, as the solar farm got in backpackers and very few locals. It will take more than a few people to fight these big companies. It will take an entire town.
Unite to fight.
Exactly, farming land, no no no solar
These renewables projects only give work to outsiders who breeze into town, expect everybody to fall at their feet and take it all the home with them wherever they come from.
All of it does nothing for our community because once they are built only rocket scientists will be able to work in them and they’re only a very small amount of people to operate them.
So don’t get sucked into the spiel.
They do nothing for our community whatsoever and employ nobody.
We do not want this monstrosity anywhere near our communities.
Take your renewables and plant them in your backyards, we’re not interested in having these eyesore constructions in ours.
As the others said, build it where the greenies live and see how they like their assets being downgraded because of the pollution, eyesore etc caused by these batteries, no don’t do that because if the batteries caught fire their investments and properties would be burnt. Why use good farm land, oh I know, the powers that be don’t want people in the country providing for themselves as people won’t be controlled. Wake up.
I imagine your great-grandparents whinged loudly when those noisy, smelly motorcars started appearing on your roads, stirring up dust and scaring the horses. But I bet you all drive them now.
And did you protest when Sir Joh decided to build a huge coal mine on “good farming land” at Tarong plus a massive power station? I bet you didn’t, because it was Sir Joh, after all.
But “after doing your own research” these days on social media, you have been convinced that climate change is a hoax, and this new technology is being foisted on you by the WEF, United Nations, Bill Gates etc in a woke bid to make you eat insects. Or to make some globalist cabal even richer.
The sad (or despicable) thing is that lazy, populist politicians who should be leading you through this process of economic change, have decided that stoking the fires of fear is a far easier way to get votes (the dollars that go into their election campaigns from resources companies that want to keep on digging up coal also help them to make up their minds).
Most of you seem to want the renewables to be erected in the city, rather than on a vacant paddock. Sounds like a great idea! How about we knock down all the houses in Inala, Darra, Oxley, Rocklea and Goodna and plant acres and acres of green grass so the solar farms and wind farms could be erected there.
Then we could move all those displaced people to say, Ellesmere, and build thousands of houses. Think of the extra rates that Council could collect!
I have to agree with Over It All – if you want to string up anybody, why not the property owner who decided that he (or she) could make more money off leasing a few hectares of low quality agricultural land next to an electricity substation for a BESS than they could from raising a few head of cattle there.
As the past few years should have shown all of us, climate change is no hoax and we have to address it by ditching fossil fuels before we all fry.
Where in Ellesmere is it to be located? Why so little warning about public meetings? Is this real consultation, or is it a done deal?
We believe it will be located not far from the existing sub-station, but no Development Application has been lodged with Council as far as we are aware. The meetings have been advertised in the media for a fortnight.
Well it’s pretty obvious already that the “deniers” have latched on to this already (a heap of comments within a short time frame – a dead giveaway) so let’s hope Akaysha are well-versed in dealing with that noisy faction.
I daresay they are.
What usually happens in this area is the noisy minority try to ruin it for the rest of the community with their PhDs in Triple F (Facebook Fact Finding) and the more learned majority sit back & say nothing as they believe common sense will prevail.
I guess this will be a test for the new Councillors & Mayor. Will they listen to factual evidence from reliable independent sources, or get swayed by a handful of noisy tin-foilers again? Will there then be a costly appeal that will take away more money from the rate payers?
Given who was swayed last time, we may be about to step backwards!
Just a few rebuttal points here:
– Another BESS is being built at Brendale; Brendale is a suburb of that little town called Brisbane, so not exactly in a country area. That facility will be up & running next year.
– These are not the batteries that have been causing fires you have read about; those are Lithium Ion batteries, as explained above.
– Where’s all the produce from this “farming land” you seem to be protecting? It’s pastureland at best. We read stories almost daily of Farmers walking off properties because they can’t make a living anymore.
– The “stop picking on the country folks” & “we wont be controlled” hysteria does nothing to strengthen your cause.
– And here’s the doozy… employment. “Only Rocket Scientists” seriously? Firstly, I think we have locals quite capable of working there, you deny them that right? And please show proof that no one from the South Burnett gets employed by these projects because I know for a fact that is incorrect.
Sweeping statements might get you an occasional headline (or Mayor, for that matter) but saying erroneous facts over & over again doesn’t make them true.
Well said Over It All.
Like it or not, we all have to move forward and renewables are the way to go. If we don’t, the world faces nothing but doom and gloom. Any more global warming from fossil fuel burning will see the earth’s temperature rise above the danger level.
I am a townie but it would not bother me if solar panels were erected in my back yard. It would bother me if a nuclear plant was shoved there. Think Chernobyl, think Fukushima.
Do I gather, once again, that I am a lone voice in this district’s wilderness?
Good on ya Brad Butwell and Loves Common Sense. The red-neck climate change deniers are intellectual dinosaurs akin to “flat earthers”.
A few of us care about the planet and what we will leave to following generations. We will stand strong! It’s simple. We have to save the planet and this helps.
I do love the last few commentators, especially “Over It All”.
We are in an interesting time of transition or disruption, as some put it.
Some of us have not the flexibility of thinking to realise that everything is changing and there is no point fighting it.
No, I wouldn’t want a solar farm next door.
But listen,the ice core research that proves beyond doubt that we have caused the upturn in temperatures convinces me that this earth is in trouble.
Those research findings are easy for anyone to find. 1.5 degrees climb in average global temps since 1900 will be passed.
Most scientists are now agreeing on this.
That means …we are buggered.
Not enough people took it seriously … early enough.
200mm climb in average ocean level since 1900, half of that in the last 10 years.
My grand kids will most likely see it rise well over a metre.
Yes, we should not give up .
Why isn’t there a meeting in Kumbia or even at Ellesmere itself? Living in the Ellesmere area I would like to know a bit more about what is happening and I was only told about this yesterday Saturday 23.03.24.
We believe a meeting will be held in Kumbia. When we find out the details we will publish them.