WA’s grid gamble: thousands of jobs at risk from infrastructure lag

"Kwinana and Port Hedland have the workforce, ports and renewable energy resources to build a globally competitive clean industry," says Matt McKee, Chief Researcher at BZE. "An extraordinary amount of work is already underway, but both regions face a common bottleneck: the construction of transmission isn't keeping pace with demand, putting thousands of jobs and billions in investment at risk."

Powering Up Western Australia summarises regional readiness assessments – built from the ground up with input from more than 60 locals and experts over the past year – to identify how infrastructure, industry and investment can move together to capture WA's clean industry opportunity. It also sets out state-level recommendations for delivery across the state's five critical industrial regions.

Key findings

• Kwinana's grid squeeze: Clean Energy Link (CEL)-North is finally under construction, but two contracted wind farms will use nearly three-quarters of its new capacity. CEL-East and further South West Interconnected System (SWIS) upgrades need to follow fast, or the grid becomes the constraint again. Kwinana's industrial base is already worth $15.7 billion a year but is contracting faster than new clean projects are arriving. Unlocked, the CEL Program could add 460-plus jobs a year and $5 billion in additional output by 2050.
• Port Hedland's access gap: Transmission in the Pilbara is built by industry, project by project – and Fortescue is currently the only proponent with any transmission in construction, and accounts for 80% of generation and storage in the region’s pipeline. That works for frontrunners like Fortescue, but locks out smaller operators and new entrants. The Pilbara Energy Transition plan – delivered transparently and with firm timelines – is needed to open shared access to the grid. The prize is real: shared transmission could unlock the Pilbara’s portion of a national green iron export opportunity worth up to $386 billion a year by 2060 – triple current ore export value. Nationally, green exports could be worth $333 billion a year by 2050, building on a Pilbara that already supplies more than 90% of Australia's iron ore exports.
• Levelling the playing field for investors, existing industries and communities was also identified as paramount to unlocking delivery on the ground in industrial regions to match the state’s rising ambitions.

Matt McKee, Chief Researcher, Beyond Zero Emissions, said:

"We came in, we listened, and we heard what's happening on the ground. WA's biggest problem isn't ambition or projects – it's sequencing. Too many decisions are happening out of order, leaving industry and workers waiting on infrastructure while investment opportunities pass by.

"It's not just transmission. For WA it’s clear that existing industries need a pathway to decarbonise and for regions to retain skilled workers in the industry, investors need certainty to make long-term decisions, and communities need to be partners in the benefits from the start. Unlocking these levers across the state – not just the Lego wins we see here right now – is essential."

"WA built one of the world's great industrial economies from scratch in a generation. It can do it again. Government ambition has risen sharply – now that ambition needs to apply to delivery. Investors are weighing WA against other resource-rich economies right now, and this opportunity won't wait forever.

"We keep seeing the same problem across Australia: we build the right projects in the wrong order. Getting that sequence right is how we turn our renewable advantage into industries, exports and jobs. Industrial regions are the nation's engine rooms – we have to retain the workforce, infrastructure and community trust of our sunset industries to power the new ones."

BZE is calling on the WA Government to deliver CEL–North on time, accelerate the next SWIS transmission projects, and put firm delivery timelines behind the Pilbara Energy Transition Plan. Powering Up Western Australia also identifies other key policies, including, legislated climate and renewable energy targets, statewide community benefit-sharing, independent oversight of renewable delivery, and a Commonwealth agreement to support North West Interconnected System (NWIS) investment as critical to sequencing delivery across WA's industrial regions.

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Beyond Zero Emissions has worked in WA since 2018, invited to work on the Collie transition planning. The Kwinana and Port Hedland assessments are the latest under BZE's National Action Plan, a place-based framework that identifies and sequences the infrastructure, policy and investment needed to unlock clean industry in Australia's industrial regions. The last assessment, in the Hunter, NSW, flagged transmission as the critical constraint - the NSW Government has since fast-tracked the Hunter Transmission Project. Find out more: bze.org.au 

Media contacts - To arrange interviews, or for more information, please contact:
Rachel Barron on 0435 368 603 or rachel.barron@bze.org.au
Or, Dylan Quinnell on 0450 668 350 or dylan.quinnell@gsccnetwork.org