Taxpayer-funded Clean Energy Finance Corporation floats $126b spend on shared renewable energy in the Pilbara

A report commissioned by the federal government’s ‘green bank’ has argued that $126 billion should be spent over the next 25 years on shared renewable energy infrastructure in the Pilbara.

The monumental expenditure on the “base case” scenario means “Australia could save more than $30b”, according to the report produced by Marsden Jacob Associates for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Mining giants going it alone on decarbonisation would create “unnecessary duplication” and cumulatively cost $157b between now and 2050, the report said.

The circa $30b of estimated savings from common-user infrastructure is split $4b from avoided transmission costs and $26b from avoided generation and storage costs.

There would also be a 21 per cent reduction in the size of the land required for tran