Brisbane to Avoid Carbon Shock

In December last year, Brisbane City Councillor Peter Matic, was directed by Brisbane City Council's civic cabinet to investigate possible sites for a green energy power plant.

A plant which, the Brisbane City Council plans to use to power everything from council buildings to traffic lights.

The rejuvenation of the idea comes in the wake of last month’s newly passed federal law amendments requiring energy companies to source 20 per cent of supplies from renewable energy by 2020.

However, Queensland is now also in the running to house a large-scale solar plant, with four companies shortlisted to win a slice of the Federal Government's $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program.

When the idea was first tabled, the Brisbane City Council considered funding the plant itself. Now, the council is hoping to use its huge power usage as an incentive to win a slice of the Federal Government's Solar Flagship funding.

"Essentially what we'd like to be able to do is to actually justify or help facilitate the construction of a new green energy plant," Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said.

"We are paying for it through the energy market now but it would be great to help the private sector justify a plant that we could point to and say to the people of Brisbane that's where the electricity is coming from that powers your street lights, your traffic lights, powers council's operations in the city."

The plant is likely to be a solar power plant but Cr Newman said the council had not ruled out other forms of renewable energy, such as wind or a hybrid solar gas plant.

"If and when the carbon reduction scheme comes in, there will be a cost anyway, so this is insulating the city of Brisbane and its ratepayers from a carbon shock," Cr Newman said.