About 700 people in the Daintree are paying more than $3 a litre for diesel to generate their own electricity, four years after the federal government signed off on $18.75 million for a microgrid that was never built.
Lawrence Mason, who runs a cafe and a fruit orchard in the community, burns about 700 litres of diesel a week. At the prices quoted this year that is roughly $2,100 a week in fuel before he sells anything. "I don't want to leave this place, it's my home," he told SBS News.
Tamara and Bruno Scenna left Sydney in 2021 to run a caravan park and restaurant there. "We are basically burning diesel rather than having a renewable microgrid; it makes no sense whatsoever," Bruno Scenna said.
The money trail is a matter of public record. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water lists the Daintree Microgrid Program among its closed programs at a total value of $19.3 million. It paid out $1.55 million across two years, from 2021-22 to 2022-23. The rest of the grant funding lapsed before construction started.
What the $19.3 million was meant to buy was announced on 22 March 2022, when the Morrison government awarded Volt Advisory Group $18.75 million under the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund. The design was an 8 megawatt solar farm, 20 megawatt hours of battery storage and a 1 megawatt hydrogen plant, with construction beginning that year and the system running by 2024. The announcement put the job count above 200.
“This is a major win for communities in the Daintree Rainforest, which will see reduced pollution and noise from diesel generators," the then energy minister, Angus Taylor, said at the time. Tim Wilson, then assistant minister to the industry and energy minister, called it "a giant leap forward in building Australia's carbon neutral future".”
The funding was withdrawn in 2024. Energy Minister Chris Bowen has said the company did not meet its contractual obligations. Volt Advisory Group has pointed to damage from Cyclone Jasper, which crossed the Far North Queensland coast in December 2023, as the reason the project could not be completed.
The households and small businesses are still running the generators. Chris Reinke, 71, has lived in the Daintree since 1983. "At the end of the day, I'm going to have to move out as I get older because I'm trying to lift jerry cans for generators," he said. Betty Hinton, 91, an artist who sells ice cream there, put it more simply: "It's a lot of work that I don't enjoy, it's a lot of expense."
Eastern Kuku Yalanji Elders Kathleen and Francis Walker have been pressing for the microgrid funding to be restored so that people can afford to live on Country.
The community is not connected to the electricity grid, and no network was built. What was funded instead was a grant to a private company, and of the $19.3 million program, $1.55 million was paid before it closed. The department says it continues to back remote renewable projects through the Regional Microgrid Program. Until one of them reaches the Daintree, 700 people will keep buying their power by the drum.
