Lessons to be learned from coal seam gas projects

For Australia to achieve a 43pc reduction in its carbon emissions by 2030, it must transition its entire electricity network to be 80pc renewables in seven short years.

Chris Bowen, the Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister, has stated that to achieve this we will need to install 64 million solar panels, 4000 wind turbines and 20,000 kilometers of new powerlines.

There is also going to be a requirement for large-scale battery storage projects, which will need to be constructed to store - or "firm" - the grid.

The renewable energy industry in Australia has been expanding since 2005, when it started from basically zero to now providing 35pc of Australia's domestic electricity.

Australia now needs to double that in half the time, including the significant upgrades to our transmission and storage systems.

The scale and the timeframes required to achieve these lofty goals reminds me of the early days of the coal seam gas (CSG) industry in Queensland, when large-scale CSG projects - funded by big multinational companies - suddenly arrived with limited notice or knowledge in the early 2000s.

Not many people knew what a CSG well looked like when these arrived, let alone the myriad of pipelines, powerlines, sub-stations and water storage tanks required to drill, operate and maintain them.

Fifteen years later and the agricultural industry and the government regulators are still playing catch-up with the often adverse impacts of developments that occur too quickly and with limited regulatory oversight.

While not perfect, today there is a greater balance of rights and interests between CSG companies and landholders.

Much of this balance has come from individual landholders, who fought hard to have their land, businesses and communities respected.

Now we have a "new wave" of development in the form of renewable energy projects - and landholders would be well advised to remember the hard lessons learned during the CSG boom.

Wind and solar proponents don't have the same powers of compulsion that have often been abused by traditional resource companies to force access to land.

But already we are seeing high pressure and underhanded tactics being used to sign-up landholders to long-term agreements with long-term ramifications.

Initial agreements can lock-up land for five to 10 years before a project even starts, and then the "leases" can be in operation for 30 to 60 years.

Commercial rates are being linked to "per tower" for wind or "per acre" for solar - based on the amount of electricity that can be generated, with limited appreciation of the value of the land under the tower or the panel or the livestock and business interruption during their construction, ongoing maintenance and operations.

Similar to the CSG industry, the wind turbines and solar panels are only part of the disruption.

It is the complex connection of cables and trenches, roads and culverts, powerlines and batteries, telecommunication towers, construction pads, lay down areas, batching plants, pits and kiosks, switching yards, transmission and collector stations, transformers, operations and maintenance buildings, camps and water storage facilitates that can make the scale and impacts of these projects difficult to manage.

Many agreements are provided to landholders without a defined map or site plan, which needs to be developed after the landholder has signed their rights away.

Unless the process is well defined, landholders are at risk of losing control of their land and the impacts to their business.

Construction scheduling is often vague and open-ended, with limited timeframes and phases defined.

Wind and solar infrastructure needs to be replaced every 15 to 20 years, which may see a rolling schedule of works being undertaken during the life of the project.

Landholders need to consider not just their day-to-day issues, such as their biosecurity obligations, access protocols, impacts to fences, watering points and yards, impacts to the use of helicopters and drones, impacts to two-way radios and mobile reception, but also the potential impacts to their insurance premiums and legal liability, the capital value of their major asset and the things that currently pay the bills - their livestock or crops.

Noise, light and vibration disturbance needs to be considered and - where appropriate - mitigated.

There is an increased risk of bushfire, stormwater impacts and spread of noxious weeds and feral animals.

There is an unknown process for decommissioning and who is responsible for the residual infrastructure if a company becomes insolvent either during, or at the end of, a lease agreement.

If a friendly wind farm proponent says that wind turbines don't make any noise - ask about the warning sirens.

Or just take a drive through the Coopers Gap project between Bell and Kingaroy.

Like in the CSG industry, there are proponents who are seeking to implement best practice and actually engage with landholders and communities to build sustainable projects - not simply ride rough shod over them for short-term profits.

Knowing which ones are the good ones is the hard part.

All of these issues should not deter landholders from assessing the opportunities that renewable projects might provide to their business and local community.

But it would be unwise to not consider and seek to mitigate the risks and ensure that the "balance" is agreed and enforced from the start - not once the large renewable horse has already bolted.

The "power" associated with these projects is literally in the landholders' hands.

The "power" is to make sure that these projects are constructed and operated sustainably for the future, not just for today's political expediency.