“We have been a country that has done well out of iron ore and coal, but green energy is the future and we’re well positioned to take advantage of this.”
Australian National University economics professor Paul Burke said the economic impact of the rise of renewable energy would be twofold as country towns benefitted from the demand for the extraction of minerals and renewable projects were built.
“There will be ongoing strong demand for copper and cobalt, and local communities will benefit from that,” Burke said.
Tristan Edis, director of clean energy advisory firm Green Energy Markets, said many of these minerals used in green energy have jumped in price due to demand.
“We are seeing the commodities in the green energy space have seen serious price rises, which is indicative that we need to expand supply to achieve what governments are targeting,” he said.
Edis said the future of some minerals such as aluminium, which is refined from bauxite, depended on the evolution of green energy.
“As battery costs get cheaper and lighter, that premium of light-weighting [using aluminium] declines. If Tesla was using a lot of aluminium in their cars, that’s a sign aluminium is more important.”
Property prices in many of these green energy mineral regions have already exploded in their own right due to pandemic-driven demand for a tree-change.
The median house price in Greenbushes, some 450 kilometres west of Perth, rose 12 per cent to $473,169 in the year to March, according to CoreLogic data.
Selling agent Mike Tucker, of Ray White South West Central, said the expansion of the lithium mine in the region will only continue to add demand and push prices up further.
“It’s made a big impact on anything within a 50- to 60-kilometre surround,” Tucker said.
“Traditional mining in Western Australia is up north in red desert, 50-degree country. To have a lithium mine that is successful in the heart of the west is a massive drawcard for the property market.”
In regions such as Portland in Victoria and Bell Bay in Tasmania, where aluminium smelters have existed for years, median house prices have skyrocketed 33 per cent and 44 per cent respectively in the past year.
Portland selling agent Boyd Falconer, of A1 Real Estate Solutions, said the region has enjoyed a boost in popularity thanks to the pandemic property boom, but the rise in aluminium prices has helped boost the local economy’s confidence.
“There is certainly a large workforce that work at the smelter, and for a long while their future was uncertain, and when any industry is threatened, it can impact on confidence.
“I assume a lot of speculators would see a bright future for Portland, and that would be partly based on the success of the aluminium smelter.”
Knight Frank Launceston’s Peter Dehnert was also cautious to attribute Bell Bay’s property boom to local aluminium manufacturers.
“There’s renewed confidence in the Tasmanian economy, and a property boom, and George Town [the nearest town to the smelter] is riding on the back of that,” Dehnert said.
He also said speculation of Andrew Forrest’s plans to have a hydrogen industry based in the area has helped the region.
In Fifield, a small central west region in NSW, median house prices have jumped 40 per cent to $565,038 in the past year alone.
With mining activity in full swing for other minerals, the development phase of a new cobalt mine has also spurred on investors, according to Ian Simpson, selling agents of Elders Forbes.
“We are seeing higher demand from investors buying investment properties … trying to capitalise on the mining operations,” Simpson said.
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