Multibillion-dollar polysilicon plant to ‘turbocharge’ Lansdown

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners proposes to develop a multibillion-dollar polysilicon manufacturing facility outside Townsville powered by renewable energy. The full development is likely to cost $8 billion to $10 billion and create 2500 operational jobs, according to Quinbrook senior director Brian Restall. Quinbrook has been conditionally allocated a 200ha portion of the total 2200ha Lansdown precinct through a Townsville City Council-run competitive tender process. Mayor Jenny Hill said the Quinbrook development was set to turbocharge the eco-industrial precinct, which is also set to host QPM's TECH battery materials plant and Edify Energy's green hydrogen project. Quinbrook is partnering with Solquartz, which has already been conditionally allocated 64ha at Lansdown to develop a metallurgical silicon metal processing plant. The partnership is intended to enable Solquartz to accelerate and integrate its project into Quinbrook’s larger polysilicon manufacturing facility. Polysilicon is a basic building block for solar panels and computer chips. The project, expected to be operational by about 2030, would source high-quality silica quartz from the North Queensland region. Cr Hill said Quinbrook was a proven international investor in the global green energy arena, having been recently awarded Energy Investor of the Year for North America and Sponsor of the Year in 2022. “Quinbrook has developed and is actively constructing several of the largest solar and battery storage projects ever undertaken in the US and the UK, representing billions of new infrastructure investment,” Cr Hill said. “This is an especially exciting announcement because Quinbrook are not only the developers and sponsors, but also the project funders, which means the money is on the table. “Once the right operating partner is chosen by the company, the project can move forward at a rapid pace, subject to the normal government approvals. “Townsville is becoming well known internationally for its potential in refining and building critical components for the green energy transition. “This means thousands of long-term sustainable manufacturing jobs for Townsville as well as jobs in local supply chains supporting green refining at Lansdown.” Mr Restall said the company had targeted Lansdown because of its clear competitive advantages as a site for large-scale manufacturing powered by renewables, logistics, site infrastructure and port access for export. “Lansdown is close to the source of some of the best silica quartz resources in the world and it has the land and site infrastructure we need to build a truly state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will be powered by renewable energy,” Mr Restall said. He said this was the type of project where Queensland could become a global superpower in the clean energy space. "There's a number of different technologies that process that quartz into polysilicon and we're working to choose the right partner to bring to the Lansdown eco-industrial site," Mr Restall said. "The scale of the project can be done in stages, and the scale will really be decided by the federal government and also the American government. "It's large enough to feed both countries and so it will come down to a decision around sovereignty of that supply chain. But sovereignty and decarbonising that supply chain are the things that we're really focused on at Quinbrook." Related: Quartz Hill drilling starts in push for 10Mt resource Quinbrook affiliate Private Energy Partners has an offtake agreement with the Australian Silica Quartz group which is advancing its Quartz Hill project in the Mount Surprise area west of Cairns. Australian Silica Quartz has received $1 million as a contribution to the work to be undertaken and PEP will in return receive the offtake of up to 10Mt metallurgical grade silicon quartz lump feedstock from the mine gate at a 10 per cent discount.

Multibillion-dollar polysilicon plant to ‘turbocharge’ Lansdown

Industry Queensland

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