
Queensland Hydro in Australia has awarded four more contracts for its Borumba Pumped Hydro Project, securing services for underground technical and management services, dams design, and front-end engineering design documentation.
The proposed Borumba Pumped Hydro Project is a pumped hydro energy storage system at Lake Borumba, located near Imbil, west of the Sunshine Coast. The project involves building a new upper reservoir, as well as a new dam wall that will replace the existing Borumba Dam wall and increase Lake Borumba’s storage capacity from 46 to 224 gigalitres. The project would have the capacity to provide up to 2,000 MW of electricity for up to 24 hours at a time, according to a release.
In June 2023, the Queensland Government committed $6 billion to progress the project, subject to regulatory approvals.
Queensland Hydro selected SYSTRA, an engineering and consultancy firm, to provide underground technical services and management services in support of construction of the exploratory tunnels for the project. The scope of this contract is the design and construction of two access tunnels, with site-based works scheduled to commence in the first half of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.
“The underground drilling program is the largest package in our Borumba Project exploratory works phase, and ensuring we have world-class technical expertise is key in delivering safe and reliable works,” said Queensland Hydro’s Executive General Manager of Delivery, Geoff Scott.
Next, Queensland Hydro awarded Water2Wire JV two contracts for dams design. The two contracts – one for the upper reservoir and one for the lower reservoir – will see Water2Wire provide dams design engineering services across both reservoirs. The Borumba Project will require seven dams and two spillways in total across the two reservoirs: six for the greenfield upper reservoir and one new dam wall downstream from the existing Borumba Dam.
Water2Wire is a joint venture between engineering and design firms GHD, Mott MacDonald and Stantec and was created to develop pumped hydro across Queensland.
“Water2Wire has consistently shown their expertise in delivering world-class hydropower and dam projects, including the Kidston PHES and many projects abroad,” said Queensland Hydro CEO Kieran Cusack. “The three companies of the joint venture will bring their significant dams and hydro design experience to our Borumba Project and we are excited to be partnering with them.”
Lastly, AFRY-Aurecon Joint Venture was awarded a contract to deliver front-end engineering design of the project. The JV is composed of Swedish-headquartered international engineering, design and advisory company AFRY and Australian-headquartered international engineering, design and advisory firm Aurecon.
AFRY brings over 125 years of hydropower expertise, contributing to the implementation of more than 60 pumped hydro projects globally since the 1960s. Aurecon has almost a century of experience delivering mega infrastructure projects in Australia.
“AFRY-Aurecon JV will advance our front-end engineering design documentation, focusing on the technical elements of the pumped hydro scheme itself – such as the interplay between the turbines, cavern design, tunnel waterway design, and other equipment – ensuring that the Borumba Project is safe, reliable and technically-sound,” Cusack said.