I write this as a current city-dweller, but one who grew up and retains deep roots in rural Australia.
A familiar refrain is taking hold in parts of Australia’s discourse on energy: that regional and rural communities are bearing the costs of the renewable energy transition while the benefits – jobs, investment and reliable power – go to the cities.
This narrative is seductive because it taps into real anxieties about change and fairness. But as with many good stories, it doesn’t withstand scrutiny. In fact, the energy transition arguably delivers far greater benefits to rural and regional Australia than its cities. Here’s four.
First, the claim that renewables impose only burdens on rural areas goes against the economic reality. Large-scale wind, solar and transmission projects are capital-intensive and while they channel some profits to developers and investors, they also generate significant local income streams. Developers typically pay land leases to farmers and graziers, and these regular payments can be a stable, inflation-protected boost to unpredictable farm incomes. The degree to which renewable assets impact farm outputs is also usually overblown. Indeed, in certain cases, renewables positively impact yields, for example, better-quality meat and wool from sheep able to graze in the shade of solar panels. Construction projects also employ hundreds of local workers, and most new assets provide stable, ongoing employment for operations, maintenance and security personnel. Moreover, community ownership models and benefit-sharing agreements are spreading, enabling local co-operatives and councils to capture a greater share of returns from projects for their communities.
Second, the transition brings infrastructure that creates new opportunities for rural communities. New transmission lines, grid upgrades and substations reduce bottlenecks that previously constrained local industry, hampered regional businesses, miners as well as farms. Better energy and grid assets allow rural economies to diversify, with new local economic drivers like manufacturing, data centres, and tourism.
Third, the average farm uses substantially more energy than the average city dwelling, and energy disruption can be far more devastating for a farmer if, for instance, they can’t irrigate, milk their cows or keep produce fresh in cold storage. The downstream agricultural supply chains are also energy-intensive, including transport, food processing and manufacturing, cold storage, distribution and retail. Stable, affordable energy systems are critical to the entire agricultural supply chain, and rural livelihoods.
Fourth, climate change poses far greater risks to rural and regional communities and addressing climate change disproportionately benefits them. The risks from a changing climate of more violent storms, droughts, floods and fires are already materialising, and while farmers and local communities can withstand the occasional bad season, sustained impacts will be devastating. It is ironic and maddening that the energy transition is often framed as ‘yet another burden that farmers must contend with’ at the same time as many face ruin from prolonged droughts, floods and other hardships, that is, the very hardships that the transition seeks to alleviate.
That said, there are legitimate concerns about the proliferation of renewables in regional areas. But they point to policy and process failures, not to an intrinsic injustice in siting renewables in those areas. Local discontent is justifiable when consultation is tokenistic, visual and noise impacts are poorly mitigated or compensated for, or promised jobs fail to materialise. Where transmission routes are chosen without meaningful community input, resentment should be expected. But these are all surmountable problems, fixable through meaningful consultation and engagement, transparent benefit-sharing, and genuine community ownership opportunities.
Part of the challenge, of course, is the substantial resources being funnelled into encouraging grassroots opposition – usually by those with political agendas and/or vested interests. Such operatives have no hesitation (or shame) in stoking people’s fear of change, victimhood and resentments towards so called ‘inner-city elites’. Sadly, these are all-too-effective levers to foment conditions for opposition.
Proponents of the energy transition need to be smart and disciplined in addressing the challenges and building social licence for new energy projects. SenateSHJ have developed a framework to help with this. The Five Conditions for Social Licence breaks down the variables that determine whether social licence is achieved and provides actionable guidance on how project teams can set about meeting the conditions to achieve community support. In short, it depends on establishing trust in those responsible for building and operating new projects, that impacted communities understand and accept why those projects are needed, why their community (or land) is the right place for them, and that the benefits of projects are shared. These can all be achieved through careful communication, consultation and engagement.
The right story to tell is that a fair, well-managed transition can and should make regional communities winners – not that rural Australia is being sacrificed. The evidence shows this is possible. The job now is design and delivery. If policymakers, developers and communities take the right approach, the renewable revolution should be a boon to the regions, not a burden.
