CONSULTANCY DONE DIFFERENTLY

Renewables Community Benefit Toolkit — Module 4 of 5

Negotiation Position Builder

Turn your benchmark data into a costed CBA negotiating brief — before the developer sets the terms.

  • $100k vs $840k/yrSame state, two outcomes
  • $850–$1,050Per MW/yr council benchmark
  • 1Negotiation window, before lodgement
Book a CBA Readiness scoping call

Module 4 of 5 — where the brief gets built

Five modules, one architecture. Each tool's output feeds the next — this is the one that produces a document you actually put in front of a developer.

  1. 1Regional DNA ProfileLive
  2. 2Project & Impact MapperLive
  3. 3Benchmark CalculatorLive
  4. 4Negotiation Position BuilderYou are here
  5. 5Local Business & Community Readiness PackLive

Legacy voluntary vs legislated mandatory

The strongest negotiating argument isn't "prepared councils do better." It's that legacy voluntary deals are frozen in time, and the law only bites on genuinely new approvals.

Legacy, voluntary

Western Downs Green Power Hub

$100,000/yr

Locked in May 2020, when the project was 400MW of solar only. Never revised — not even as 845MW / 2,300MWh of BESS was added across three staged expansions completed or under construction through 2025–2026.

Mandated, current

Goombi Renewable Energy Hub

$840,000/yr

Negotiated under the 2025 law: $1,050/MW/yr on an 800MW wind farm — exactly matching the state's own emerging wind benchmark, and more than 4x Western Downs' effective solar rate.

The loophole: expansions to an already-approved project don't automatically re-trigger a Community Benefit Agreement. A staged project can grandfather years of future expansion under one early, cheap approval — the window to get this right is narrow and it doesn't reopen.

Build your negotiating position

Nine steps. Paste in what you already have, confirm the numbers, and walk out with a costed brief.

    Step 1 — Council & Project Intake

    Paste the outputs from Module 1 (Regional DNA Builder) and Module 2 (Project & Impact Mapper). No re-keying council data by hand.

    Step 2 — Capacity & Technology Confirmation

    Confirm the project type and scale against your Module 2 data.

    Step 3 — Benchmark Selection

    Module 3 (Benchmark Calculator) is live — paste its output directly below. Manual entry is the fallback only, not the default.

    Manual entry (fallback only)

    Only enter the rate(s) that match Step 2's Technology — a $/MW rate for Solar, Wind, Hybrid Solar+BESS or Hybrid Wind+BESS; a $/MWh rate for Standalone BESS or any Hybrid option. The $/MW field can't be used for Hybrid Solar+Wind+BESS, since solar and wind carry different rates and there's no single figure to apply it to — Step 4 will flag it as ignored if entered. A rate left over from testing a different technology is ignored the same way, not added — Step 4 will flag that too.

    Step 4 — Floor / Ceiling Calculator

    Computed live from the sourced comparables bank (benchmarks.json), scaled to your project's actual capacity.

    Step 5 — Local Priority List Builder

    What would the council spend the negotiated benefit on? Structured, costed entries — the "what we'd spend it on" half of the ask.

    Total: $0/yr

    Step 6 — Comparable Selection

    Pick 2–4 comparables most persuasive against this developer and project scale.

    Structural deal terms — supply these explicitly so the AI states them as agreed terms rather than flagging them as assumptions. Leave blank only if genuinely still to be negotiated.

    Step 7 — Draft Position Generation

    Copy this prompt into Claude (or your preferred AI tool), run it, then copy/paste the raw result back below — do not save it to Word first. Converting through Word before pasting back can silently strip or reposition the [VERIFY: ...] and [NEGOTIATE: ...] tags, which hides them from Step 8's checks.

    Step 8 — QA Exception Gate

    Every figure must be sourced and every blocking VERIFY tag resolved before export unlocks. Negotiation points — items that depend on the developer's response or a downstream council decision — are tracked separately and don't hold export back.

      Step 9 — Dual Export

      Internal version keeps build notes, parameter tables and VERIFY markers. External / Negotiating Position is Council's opening position, ready to put in front of a developer — blocked until Step 8's blocking checks clear. Negotiation points carry forward as a clearly labelled section, not hidden.

      Internal

      Working copy for CDD/council staff — VERIFY tags and all.

      External / Negotiating Position

      Council's opening position for the developer — open negotiation points included as a labelled section, not hidden.

      Two versions of the brief

      Internal

      Build notes, parameter tables, and open VERIFY tags — the working copy for CDD and council staff.

      External / Negotiating Position

      Council's opening position, ready to put in front of a developer — open negotiation points included as a labelled section. Export is blocked until every figure is sourced.

      Ready to build your position?

      This tool is delivered as part of a CBA Readiness Pack engagement — book a scoping call to get started.

      Book a CBA Readiness scoping call