The Snowy 2.0 project is the largest committed renewable energy project in the country, with Snowy Hydro saying it will underpin Australia’s transition to a low-carbon emissions future at the lowest cost for consumers.
Since the start of the project, however, lead contractor Future Generation Joint Venture has faced its fair share of media an political criticism for going over time and budget.
But Local Content and Business Engagement manager Luke Judd says this not necessarily a bad thing for the local suppliers and community.
“It’s more money and more time that the projects around spending money in region and thought Australian suppliers,” he said.
“We get a lot of naysayers, but that doesn’t paint the picture of what’s on the ground. We’ve got a really positive relationship with local suppliers – we’ve spent a lot of money with them.
“And the Chambers of Commerce we are meeting with, they’re all quite excited that the projects will be around for a bit longer and more money being invested in the region.”
The revised cost to cost to complete the project is $12 billion, up from $5 billion. As of June 2023, $4.3 billion had been spent on Snowy 2.0, with 80% reinvested in the Australian economy.
And more than $170 million has been committed, with $130 million spent to date, within the five local government areas surrounding the project.
Local companies that have won contracts to supply to Snowy 2.0 include:
- Roddy engineering
- South East Printing
- Hip Pocket workwear
- Riverina Traffic Services
- Mitre 10 Cooma
- Cooma Tyrepower
- Roses Restaurant
- Ironbark Training (Indigenous)
- Luke Penrith Arts & Designs (Indigenous)
- Wolgalu Footprints – Shane Herrington (Indigenous).
According to ICN Regional Manager South NSW, Geoff Reardon Future Generation JV has identified shortfalls and is working closely with ICN NSW to ensure local suppliers are exposed to a range of opportunities.
In fact, under its Australian Industry Participation Plan, the company has an obligation to list work packages on ICN Gateway.
So far, more than 1400 companies had expressed interest via Gateway in working on the project, with more than half of these coming from NSW suppliers.
Late last year, Geoff met with senior procurement staff to discuss how the joint venture could maximise local content.
Since then, Future Generation has launched more work packages on Gateway and has unbundled large packages to give smaller companies more exposure to the project.
The company has also been more proactive in “holding the hand” of prospective suppliers in relation to pre-qualification.
Geoff is now catching up weekly with contacts at Future Generation to keep the local procurement plans on track.
He is also working with sub-contractors, Voith and ATB Riva Calzone, to ensure they also expose work packages to local, regional and Australian suppliers.
The Snowy 2.0 project will add 2,200 megawatts of on-demand generating capacity and approximately 350,000 megawatt hours of large-scale storage to the National Electricity Market. That’s enough energy storage to power three million homes for a week.
The project involves linking two existing dams, Tantangara and Talbingo, through 27km of tunnels and building a new underground power station.
At last count, 2300 people were employed on the Snowy 2.0 project, with 300 coming from the Snowy Valley and Snowy Monaro Logal Government Areas.
The first power from the project is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2027 (revised from early 2025) and the target date for commercial operation of all units is December 2028.
For more information on Snowy 2.0, go to the Snowy Hydro website.
To see open work packages and associated opportunities, go to the Snowy 2.0 Gateway page
