One of the largest sawmills in Australia will turn wood waste into enough electricity to run the plant and export to the grid in a possible return to a situation that ended last century.

OneFortyOne is spending about $30 million on a new boiler and steam turbine at the Jubilee Sawmill in Mount Gambier as part of a $90 million site upgrade.

The company says the renewable biomass power generation project will generate 43,800 megawatt hours of electricity per year when work is complete in 2026.

The Jubilee Sawmill sits on the eastern edge of Mount Gambier. (ABC South East SA: Eugene Boisvert)

OneFortyOne chief executive Wendy Norris said this would be enough to run the plant and either sell the remainder to the power network or use it to charge future electric forklifts, trucks and other machinery.

“What’s really exciting about this project is that the turbine will generate enough electricity to power the entire Jubilee site from renewable wood fibre,” Ms Norris said. 

“That helps us to achieve over 70 per cent of our 2030 emissions reduction target so we’re very proud of that achievement so far ahead of 2030.” 

The Jubilee Sawmill produces timber for homes, fences and landscaping. (ABC South East SA: Bec Whetham)

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas visited the sawmill for the announcement. 

“That’s an example of where the private sector is stepping up to the plate,” he said.

“It’s a $30 million investment from OneFortyOne and it’s all a demonstration of how the forestry industry is becoming increasingly renewable in a way that of course puts it in demand not just locally but also globally.”

Back to historic practice

The formerly state-owned Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) started running a power station using waste from the Jubilee Sawmill in 1957 to produce electricity for the south east after concerns about a lack of supply in the area.

Large power lines later connected Mount Gambier with Adelaide in 1963 and 1972.

Phil McInnes worked for ETSA from the 1960s until 2004 and is a member of the Mount Gambier History Group.

Phil McInnes remembers when one of the old turbines broke down. (ABC South East SA: Eugene Boisvert)

Mr McInnes said more uses were found for the wood offcuts so it was then unviable to use it to make electricity.

“It just got too expensive and we ended up having to shut the power station down because it was all going to panel board, core board — a lot of people don’t know about core board but core board was actually manufactured in Mount Gambier as well,” he said.

“There were quite a lot of things that used the chips — and it was also carted to Portland.”

One of the turbines blowing up after a small steam leak and circuit-breaker fault sealed the end of the mill producing power for Mount Gambier in 1976.

“Everything just went haywire with vibrations and … the exciter on the end which generates the DC for the excitation, that just cracked off and fell on the floor,” Mr McInnes said.

The project will not reduce the amount of steam expelled from the sawmill or the smell of tannins produced at the site. 

Australia’s first electric log truck was launched last year by Mount Gambier company Fennell Forestry. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)

Project to reduce emissions

South Australian Forest Products Association chief executive Nathan Paine said the project sent a clear message to policy makers.

“OneFortyOne’s investment into a renewable cogeneration power project will deliver a 50 per cent reduction in OneForty One’s total scope one emissions and over 85 per cent of their total scope two emissions, saving over 9,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent,” he said. 

“Not only will this new cogeneration facility generate all the energy for the Jubilee Sawmill, the largest sawmill in Australia, it is estimated to generate 20,000mWh of excess renewable electricity which will be returned to the grid or in the future used to power vehicles and machinery.”