Member for Western Victoria, Gayle Tierney MP today attended the official opening of the $32 million South West Fibre Chip Mill at Myamym, a project that was developed with the help of a $300,000 Victorian Government grant.
The grant from the Government’s Regional Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) was made to Glenelg Shire Council for the Heywood Industrial Corridor – Power Upgrade Project.
Ms Tierney, who was representing Regional and Rural Development Minister Jacinta Allan, said upgrading the electricity supply had paved the way for the project to proceed and congratulated SP Ausnet and Powercor for their support.
“The Government’s involvement in boosting power capability has helped bring about one of the region’s most important new developments,” Ms Tierney said.
“Power supply was one of the planning and infrastructure issues which had to be resolved for the project to move ahead.
“Being a ‘greenfield’ development, high voltage electricity was required to be extended to the mill site.
“The electricity infrastructure works required an upgrade to the high voltage transmission infrastructure at the Heywood Terminal Station (HTS) by SP Ausnet, specifically installation of a new 22kVa bus-bar.
“To supply electricity from the HTS to the mill site, a new 15km feeder line was also required to be constructed, by electricity distributor Powercor.
“The upgrade of the HTS has provided capacity to connect several new feeder lines f required.”
Ms Tierney said the Government worked with Midway, SP Ausnet and Powercor to co-ordinate the implementation of the electricity upgrade and fast-track the delivery timeframe for a temporary high voltage (HV) supply to the mill.
The site will be upgraded to a permanent HV supply in the next 12 months.
“The Heywood Industrial Corridor not only facilitated this project but will pave the way for more multi-million dollar industrial developments,” Ms Tierney said.
The RIDF is improving the competitive capacity of regional Victoria and enhancing economic development through investment, job creation and promoting export opportunities.
The fund has invested more than $460 million in regional Victoria and has directly helped start 252 projects worth more than $1.32 billion.