Greens to canvass Collie as renewable energy town

A public meeting will be hosted in Collie by Greens Senator for WA Scott Ludlam on Monday to test the reaction to the party’s plans to turn the town into a renewable energy generation hub.

Senator Ludlam said Collie should be one of five regional renewable energy zones as it had key attributes which made it the right place to generate the energy.

Earlier this year Mr Ludlam released a costed, technical plan for how WA’s main electricity grid could switch to 100 per cent renewable energy generation.

“The Greens’ plan for a transition to 100 per cent renewable energy supplying the grid that supplies South West WA’s electricity would create, at a conservative estimate, 22,000 to 26,860 jobs — in other words, more than three times as many jobs as the number of people employed in coal, oil and gas extraction in WA,” he said.

Mr Ludlam said he understood the financial viability of Collie’s coalmines was an ongoing issue.

“Our Energy 2029 investigation identified two possible renewable energy scenarios for Collie — one dominated by biomass and the other a mix involving solar PV and wind,” he said.

“Collie is an industrial town and our plan would see it with a new labour-intensive industry run by a highly-skilled local workforce.”

Mechanical engineer Steve Gates and biomass expert Ben Rose from Perth organisation Sustainable Energy Now will speak on renewable energy technologies.

The meeting will be held at the Collie Senior Citizens Centre on Forrest Street at 12pm Monday.

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