Annual Report 2022/23

This year Powerlink played a key role in supporting the Queensland Government’s development of the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan (QEJP), with transmission at the centre of policy and industry development, to support Queensland’s transition to a low carbon future. We also remained committed to providing safe, reliable and cost-effective energy for the Queenslanders we serve.

Highlights of 2022/23

• Queensland recorded a new record 30-minute electricity demand of 10,070MW on 17 March 2023 and a record minimum demand on 11 September 2022. Our network performed well throughout the reporting period to meet the new patterns of demand.
• Powerlink led development of the SuperGrid Strategy to guide the development of the proposed 500kV transmission backbone – the network infrastructure needed in Queensland to support renewable energy developments and large-scale storage.
• We progressed work on the Far North Queensland, Southern Downs and Western Downs Renewable Energy Zones (REZ) which will have the capacity to bring 4,500MW into the new SuperGrid.
• Construction of a $20 million world-class Operational Technology and Innovation Centre commenced in February 2023.
• Over 5,000MW of renewable and storage projects are in operation or under construction, and over 30,000MW is in initial project development stages as part of our renewable generation pipeline.
• We developed a new SuperGrid Landholder Payment Framework to significantly boost payments to landholders hosting new transmission infrastructure and, in an Australian first, introduced payments for adjacent landholders.
• The CopperString 2032 project, a $5 billion investment in North Queensland, transitioned to Powerlink in March 2023.
• Our annual employee engagement survey overall engagement score of 76 per cent reflected ongoing improvement in employee engagement across all divisions.
• An interim Queensland SuperGrid Training Centre and Transmission Hub was opened in Gladstone in April, providing a regional base for Powerlink teams and industry partners. Construction on a permanent site is expected to commence in 2024. In Townsville an interim hub is being established in Mount Louisa, and work is underway to establish a permanent hub in Townsville including a CBD office for CopperString 2032.
• Powerlink hosted Queensland’s premier energy event, the Transmission Network Forum, in November 2022 with record-breaking industry attendance in person and online.
• Successfully established an advanced Microsoft Azure hosted cloud and data analytics platform as part of Powerlink’s strategic partnership with Microsoft – effectively centralising data into an environment designed to ensure a smooth integration with future technologies.