A $100 million newly-completed Energex electricity project will power jobs and business growth on the Sunshine Coast for decades to come.
Speaking at the Sunshine Coast where he inspected part of the project, Energy Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said the 17km long 132,000-volt SunCoast powerline between Palmwoods and West Maroochydore would power more than 275,000 homes and play a vital role in the region's continued growth.
"Essential infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity are crucial for a region's growth and the SunCoast power project was built for this reason," Dr Lynham said.
"The global coronavirus pandemic is impacting economies around the world and Queensland is no different.
"Because Queenslanders have done such a great job fighting coronavirus, we can now focus on delivering Queensland's plan for economic recovery.
"Investing in our electricity infrastructure is an important part of that plan – these power upgrades will help support thousands of local jobs for projects such as SunCentral, the expansion of the Sunshine Coast Airport and major domestic housing estates such as Aura."
The new line took nearly three and a half years to construct and supported up to 24 direct and indirect jobs.
"Until now the Sunshine Coast had two main circuits running from the State's electricity backbone to the region which were reaching their capacity at peak load periods such as hot summer days," Dr Lynham said.
"This new line has given the Sunshine Coast an additional major electricity injection point providing further capacity to the growing region.
"It also allows for maintenance work on the existing injection points without disrupting supply to existing customers, and provides additional reliability during storms or other unforeseen network events."
Meanwhile works are continuing on a $17 million project to replace secondary systems at the Palmwoods Substation and refit the publicly owned Powerlink's 90 kilometre-long Palmwoods to Woolooga transmission line.
Dr Lynham said the two Powerlink projects supported 40 jobs and were necessary to keep up with the Coast's growth.
"The Palmwoods substation is a major injection point in Powerlink's transmission network and supplies Mooloolaba, Nambour, Beerwah and Caboolture," he said.
"This project will underpin the long-term safe, reliable and cost-effective performance of the transmission network in this rapidly-growing region and will safeguard electricity supply on the Sunshine Coast for years to come.
"And Queenslanders know that they can rely on their electricity transmission and distribution systems because they remain owned by Queenslanders."
Queensland's publicly-owned electricity companies – Powerlink, Ergon, Energex, CS Energy, Stanwell Corp and CleanCo – will invest more than $1.76 billion on capital works in 2020-21, supporting up to 3920 jobs.
