What the 2019-20 Budget means for the utility industry

The highly anticipated 2019-20 Federal Budget, which was announced on the evening of Tuesday 2 April, has some significant outcomes for the utility industry, promising continued emissions reductions and financial assistance for energy bills, but lacking allocations for drought management and the water industry.

South East Water has transferred operations of the Boneo Water Recycling Plant upgrade to the John Holland SUEZ Beca joint venture, with construction works now underway. The transfer marks an important milestone for the project that will deliver an innovative, safe and sustainable water recycling process for the local community.

Almost 8000 tonnes of sewage sludge has been recycled from the Warragul Wastewater Treatment Plant, thanks to a project undertaken by Gippsland Water. Sewage sludge, also known as biosolids, was dredged from the treatment plant lagoon, dewatered and transported via 221 truckloads to Gippsland Water’s Soil and Organic Recycling Facility for composting.

A new piece of software will use machine learning to predict sewage overflows, and potentially avoid overflows entirely.

The Western Australian Government has teamed up with the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the LNG industry to develop a world-first microscale LNG plant, as part of an LNG Futures Facility in Kwinana.

An exploration license has been granted for Australia’s first offshore wind project, which could help address climate change concerns and create thousands of regional jobs.

Online retailer, Catch Group, has expanded its services with the announcement of an Australian energy group called Catch Energy, which will provide competitively priced energy and gas plans in partnership with 1st Energy.