Over the past several years, Mirabou Energy has delivered projects across regional and remote Queensland, with a particular focus on discrete Indigenous communities in the Torres Strait and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
This piece reflects on three completed projects and highlights a recurring challenge encountered throughout their delivery: the limited availability of reliable data to support robust analysis and evidence‑based recommendations.
The first project, Regional Electricity Energy Supply Proposal (2023), examined electricity and energy supply options for Gulf of Savannah communities west of Cairns to the Northern Territory border, including Doomadgee, Burketown, Normanton, Mornington Island, Croydon, and Etheridge.
The project developed a "least‑regrets" investment pathway to achieve net zero emissions in electricity and energy supply by 2050. This work was noteworthy in that it provided a strategic, regional perspective for remote communities not covered by other major studies, such as the Australian Energy Market Operator's Integrated System Plan.
During this project, several data limitations were identified, including: the lack of reliable electricity demand data and asset condition and performance information; incomplete data on fuel, diesel, and oil sales by volume and value, even at local government area level; limited access to consistent solar and wind resource data; and the absence of a reliable pipeline of future economic development opportunities for the region.
While sufficient data was ultimately sourced to inform the analysis and recommendations, a key proposal to repeat the study every five years was rejected by the Queensland Department of State Development, which had co‑funded the project.
The second project (2025) assessed gross regional product, industry composition, employment, private sector investment, and government funding within the Torres Strait Island Regional Council (TSIRC) area. The objective was to establish an historical economic baseline, identify funding flows and trends, and develop a model capable of forecasting future scenarios.
This work revealed significant shortcomings in publicly available datasets. In particular, the Productivity Commission's Closing the Gap database does not provide Torres Strait‑specific data, relies on information that is approximately ten years old, and has no stated plan for updating the dataset. These limitations raise questions about the evidentiary basis used to assess progress against Closing the Gap targets and may partially explain the reliance on qualitative rather than quantitative measures for outcomes in the Torres Strait.
The third project involved preparing a Strategic Climate Risk Assessment and Action Plan for the TSIRC region. The project team compiled a database of approximately 150 reports addressing climate impacts in the region, including material from the IPCC and Australia's First National Climate Risk Assessment (2025). These sources were used to categorise climate hazards affecting the region and its 14 inhabited islands.
Despite broad consensus that the Torres Strait Islands will experience significant climate impacts well before 2050, the leading Australian climate modelling tools—CSIRO's Wet Tropics Cluster and Queensland Climate Futures—only provide regional‑scale forecasts of climate impacts rather than at individual island level. This is problematic, as the islands vary significantly in their geophysical characteristics, meaning climate risks and adaptation needs are not uniform.
Collectively, these experiences highlight the significant challenges faced by TSIRC and regional leaders in making informed, forward‑looking decisions when critical datasets are incomplete, outdated, or insufficiently granular.
James Reynolds is a Waanyi Gangalidda person from the Gulf of Carpentaria and founder of Mirabou Energy, a Supply Nation registered business. He has more than 23 years' experience in Australia's energy markets and infrastructure services industries.
Mr Reynolds is also a member of the Investment Advisory Committee to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) Board on the Rewiring the Nation Fund, and a member of the Transaction Advisory Committee to AEMO Services Limited on Commonwealth Capacity Investment Scheme Tranche 4 and 5 and NSW Long Duration Contract Tender.
