The prospect of large-scale renewable energy projects being developed on lands over which Traditional Owners hold rights and interests is likely to present risks in the distribution of socio-economic and environmental impacts, as well as opportunities for Aboriginal benefit, through partnerships, equity and ownership, employment, training, sustainable income generation, and potentially through improved access to affordable energy.
Modular in design, renewable energy technologies have a diverse range of possible applications, and the opportunities for Aboriginal leadership, participation and benefit are undoubtedly greater, more varied and across a wider number of scales than the limited number of case studies examined here.
Projects may be developed unilaterally by Aboriginal communities and PBCs for discrete aims of community development, household energy security and enterprise development; others may be undertaken in alliance with private sector developers or the state and progressed through agreement making processes.
This paper proposes that while the benefits and risks of specific projects are likely best assessed on a case-by case basis, a number of common themes- such as the efficacy of genuine FPIC processes- are of utility across scales of development, from small to large.
The extent to which Aboriginal decision-making is at the centre, rather than periphery, of renewable energy policy and project development remains the key to socially sustainable project development, as well as to any estimate of the success of the renewable energy transition currently underway in the North-West.
Author: Brad Riley in Nulungu Research Papers, The University of Notre Dame Australia (2021)