Four councils split the REZ’s $45 million infrastructure fund. Each got within $104,000 of the same figure

Where this money comes from is worth stating first, because it is not a grant from consolidated revenue. EnergyCo says the program is funded from access fees, paid by generation and storage projects with an access right to connect to the network infrastructure. In other words the wind and solar developers pay to plug in, and a share of that is spent locally. EnergyCo also says it brought the money forward so that communities could benefit even before construction begins, and that funds will keep being generated over the next 33 years.

The initial commitment, announced by the Minister for Energy on 20 October 2023, is $128.4 million to the end of 2028. Stage one released $76.5 million of it through four streams.

What stage one actually paid out

Three of the four streams have landed within a whisker of what was announced. The Local Community Fund has allocated 98.9 per cent of its $21 million, the small grants stream 99.1 per cent of its $500,000, and the Legacy Infrastructure Fund 99.5 per cent of its $45 million. This is a program that has spent what it said it would spend.

The four councils, and the shape of the split

The Legacy Infrastructure Fund is the big one, and it is restricted to councils. Four received it.

That is not a competition result. Four councils, four shares within about $104,000 of each other on totals of roughly $11.2 million each. Whatever process sat behind it, the outcome is an even division between the host councils rather than an allocation by population, by submission quality or by how much transmission each one is hosting.

It is worth knowing that as a resident, because the councils are not the same size. Warrumbungle Shire and Dubbo Regional received effectively identical amounts, and Warrumbungle chose to spread its share across five projects while Dubbo put its entire share into one.

One stream names its recipients but not their amounts

The First Nations Fund is $10 million, and eight recipients are listed. Unlike the other three streams, its table has two columns rather than three: applicant and project title, with no funding column. So the public record shows which eight organisations were successful and what they proposed, but not what any of them received.

We are not suggesting anything improper, and we have not asked EnergyCo why the tables differ. There may be a straightforward reason. But it is the difference between a reader being able to check this stream and not being able to, and it is the reason our total of published amounts is $66.1 million rather than roughly $76 million.

The newest slice, and what it does

The $1.4 million Smart Farming Program announced on 12 August will let primary producers in the zone apply for grants covering 70 per cent of eligible technology costs, to a maximum of $35,000. Eligible items run from soil and water sensors and drones to livestock monitoring, electric fencing monitors and fuel tank sensors, plus the connectivity devices that make them work. Applicants must first complete an Agtech Fundamentals workshop run under the state’s Farms of the Future program.

At the maximum grant, $1.4 million funds forty farms. That is our arithmetic, and it is the ceiling rather than a forecast, since most grants will be smaller. Applications open in the coming months.

Our view, labelled as such

Two things are true at once here and both deserve saying. The program is real, it is substantially paid out, and it is funded by the developers rather than by taxpayers, which is a defensible way to do this. Ninety-nine per cent delivery against three announced streams is a better record than most regional funds manage.

The part worth watching is what the even split implies. Dividing $45 million four ways between host councils is administratively clean and politically safe, and it means the fund is not trying to match money to impact. A council hosting more transmission line, or more non-resident workers, gets the same as one hosting less. Whether that is fair depends on whether the disruption is also evenly spread, and nothing in these tables tells you that.

The second thing to watch is timing. The two newest programs, $14.5 million for telecommunications and $1.4 million for farm technology, have both been announced with applications opening in the coming months. Announced money is not open money, and a grant program with no opening date is not yet a grant program.