$20M CopperString contract and vanadium battery trial announced

CopperString 2.0 is a 1,100-kilometre transmission line from Townsville to Mount Isa that will connect Queensland's North West Minerals Province to the national electricity grid.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Resources Minister Scott Stewart held a press conference at the official opening of Vecco Group's Townsville Vanadium Battery Electrolyte Manufacturing Facility to make the announcements on Thursday.

Ms Palaszczuk said a $20 million contract to commence early works on CopperString 2.0 was awarded to Civic Group.

"We are backing CopperString 2032. CopperString is very important to Townsville and important for Mount Isa to unlock that critical minerals industry that's absolutely needed for our state," she said.

"In this year's budget we have committed $1 billion, an increase of more than $500 on what we had previously announced. This is our commitment to Townsville.

"We are also announcing that Energy Queensland will trial a vanadium battery with Vecco and Japan's Sumatomo Electric.

"So lots of great news for the Townsville region."

Minister for Resources and Townsville MP Scott Stewart said the investment in CopperString would allow the biggest infrastructure build that Queenslanders would have seen to date.

"This is about unlocking $500 billion worth of critical minerals that not only we need but the world needs to de-carbonise their economies," Mr Stewart said.

"So some of the minerals we will see are copper, colbalt and my favourite vanadium.

"We have the third largest deposit of vanadium anywhere in the world, behind China and Russia. So what we want to do is mine the vanadium at Cloncurry and Julia Creek but we also want to process it, refine it and build the batteries here in Townsville so we can export around the world.

"We've got the capability, we've got the capacity but more importantly we've got the passion to do this now and now we've got the infrastructure to support that through CopperString."

Mr Stewart said 24.5 million tonnes of critical minerals were required to meet Queensland's needs.

"So when we are looking at de-carbonising our economy through what we have through our Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan, we will need 2800 wind turbines and an additional 25 million solar panels more than what we have now, and we are going to need 7000 of these large grid size batteries.

"So to put into context we are going to need 24.5 million tonnes of critical minerals to satisfy our needs.

"We've got the Royal Mining Congress with 3000 people from 70 different countries coming into Brisbane for the first time ever to see what we are doing in the North West Minerals Province.

"This is about unlocking the future of the north west and north east minerals province."

Vecco Group Managing Director Thomas Northcott said he was excited to be partnering with Energex and Japan's Sumotomo Electric to trial vanadium batteries.

"Our facility commences operations this week making battery electrolyte for large-scale vanadium flow batteries, like the battery we are delivering to Energex in partnership with Sumotomo Electric," Mr Northcott said.

"Our facility is the first in Australia and joins a growing list of plants being constructed and operated around the world including US, Europe, China, Japan and Korea.

"Vanadium batteries in our grid can provide cheaper energy for Queensland households and storing our abundant solar energy for use when the sun isn't shining.

"Within two years we will have the complete supply chain. We will mine vanadium, process vanadium and manufacture vanadium flow batteries here in Queensland, creating over 500 regional jobs.

"The vanadium industry is critical to supporting the Queensland Energy Transition by supplying the batteries to support our growing renewable energy assets."