Nov 20, 20232 min read

The Queensland Energy & Jobs Plan

The Queensland Energy & Jobs Plan is a series of commitments and investments towards Queensland hitting its 70% renewable target by 2032, including the conversion of all publicly-owned coal power stations into clean energy hubs by 2035 and a Job Security Guarantee for all related workers.

Three workers wearing hard hats install solar panels onto a roof. The text "The Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan" is foregrounded.

The plan also includes:

a new renewable energy of 80% by 2035, following the 2032 target.
a commitment to progress two new pumped hydro projects by 2035—Borumba and Pioneer-Burdekin
a pathway to build the new Queensland SuperGrid, which will connect our solar, wind, battery and hydrogen projects across the state and unlock new capacity and storage
substantial investment across the state, with 95% of clean energy infrastructure investment anticipated to be in regional Queensland.

The state economy expected to grow by a further $25 billion by 2040 than without the plan. Independent modelling also estimates that the household retail electricity bill of the typical Queensland household will be $150 lower and nearly $1500 lower for small businesses in 2032 than without the plan.

The plan also expects the creation of up to 100,000 new jobs, including 64,000 jobs in clean energy infrastructure such as construction and manufacturing, and 36,000 in “green growth jobs” such as those related to battery manufacturing, metal refining, renewable hydrogen and resource mining..

Furthermore, $150 million has been set aside to support workers in publicly owned coal-fire power stations as part of the Job Security Guarantee. This is intended to retain enough workers to maintain the reliable operation of existing coal-fired power stations and to support workers in training and new employment pathways within the renewable energy sector.

From 2022 $62 Billion dollars will be committed to the project with 95% of this investment allocated for regional Queensland. The plan is expected to deliver 22 Gigawatts of new renewable energy into the state’s power grid, with 1 Gigawatt stated to be enough to power 300,000 homes.

Two new world-class pumped hydrogen projects are tabled as part of the plan, the Borumba and Pioneer-Burdekin sites, collectively expected to deliver 7 Gigawatts of long duration storage. The Pioneer-Burdekin has the potential to be the largest pumped hydrogen energy storage site in the world at 5 Gigawatts, with a generational capacity 2.5x that of the Snowy 2.0 project.

The Queensland Labor government expects 54% of the new energy capacity to come from state companies with the remaining 46% being made up by private investment. The government will to own and fund all of the transmission, with the hydrogen assets also being state-owned.

The steps towards 80% renewable energy by 2035, include fist reaching 60% by 2030. The government has also pulled the original Queensland Renewable Energy Target (QRET) of 50% by 2030 two years earlier to 2028. As of 2023 renewable energy accounts for more than 20% of the state’s power grid. This is up from 7% when the Palaszczuk government first came to power