Some good news. We have had a conversation with a consulting firm that is potentially willing and seemingly well qualified to do a feasibility study of our proposed off-river, pumped hydro storage (the ‘water battery’). This is both the most novel and potentially the most financially viable part of a system that could give Braidwood effectively zero-emission, secure electricity at an attractive price to customers.

The firm is Entura, a spin-off of Tassie Hydro, and they have experience with conventional and pumped hydro as well as electricity generation. They would probably evaluate a solar farm as well, and this is by now becoming more routine – it would involve details of how a solar farm would fit with the community’s needs, local power lines and so on.

Entura would only do the engineering and technical feasibility. We would need to get someone else to do the financial feasibility, but that seems plausible. We will continue to look for potential consultants, who might do just the financials or the whole package, but real experience with pumped hydro is not that common.

The Committee resolved to now seriously explore potential funding of feasibility study/ies now that we have at least one serious prospect, at the same time as continuing to explore for other consultants. We think there are some good possibilities for funding.