A First Negotiating Cycle, Three Projects at Once
Nardoo Shire is a rural Queensland council of 15,400 people across 22,800km² — grazing and agriculture country with no prior renewables exposure. In a single four-month window, three developers lodged pre-application contact: a 250MW wind farm, a 120MW solar farm, and a 180MW/480MWh solar-plus-battery energy storage (BESS) hybrid. Combined peak construction workforce: approximately 440 — nearly 3% of the shire's entire working-age population, arriving into a town of 4,200.
Council had never negotiated a Community Benefit Agreement. No policy existed. No benchmark data. No verified map of what was actually coming, when, or how big. Three developers were about to sit across the table from a council with nothing to negotiate from.
Same Law, Wildly Different Outcomes
Since 18 July 2025, Queensland's PSICBOLA framework has required a Social Impact Assessment and a binding Community Benefit Agreement before a wind, solar (≥1MW), or BESS (≥50MW) project can lodge its Development Application. The law is identical for every council. The results are not.
Legacy, voluntary
Western Downs Green Power Hub
$100,000/yr
Locked in May 2020 on 400MW solar. Never revised — not even as 845MW / 2,300MWh of BESS was added across three staged expansions through 2025–2026.
Mandated, current
Goombi Renewable Energy Hub
$840,000/yr
Negotiated under the 2025 law at $1,050/MW/yr on an 800MW wind farm — matching the state's own emerging benchmark. More than 4x Western Downs' effective rate.
The difference wasn't luck. It was whether the council walked in with sourced comparables and a costed ask, or an open hand.
This isn't a Nardoo-specific pattern — real Queensland wind farm and solar farm projects show the same spread. Lotus Creek Wind Farm settled at $100,000/yr on 285MW, well under half of Isaac Regional Council's own current benchmark. Boulder Creek Wind Farm's approval predates the law by four years, so its $100,000/yr fund is entirely voluntary — no council CBA exists at all. Moah Creek Wind Farm routed benefit into hyper-local neighbour payments instead of a council fund. And Moonlight Range Wind Farm was refused outright in 2025 over inadequate community consultation. Same state, same law, four very different outcomes.
Five Modules. One Architecture.
Each tool's output feeds the next — the Regional DNA Profile built in Module 1 fed every module that followed, the same way the CDD 7 Tools system works for NQ civil contractors.
Starting State vs. Result
Before — Starting State
After — 5 Modules Complete
See the Actual Negotiating Position
"Negotiation Position Builder" is a module name. This is what it actually produced — the real Module 4 output for one of Nardoo's three projects, not a description of the capability.
The Toolkit Said "Not Yet" — Twice
Two different modules, two different kinds of caution, both catching a different failure mode before it reached anyone who'd act on it.
The Briefing Wasn't Drafted
A Local Business Readiness Briefing only drafts once a workforce accommodation facility is built, under construction, or has a lodged/approved Development Application. Nardoo failed all three tests.
| Gate criterion | Met? |
|---|---|
| Workforce accommodation already built | No |
| Accommodation under construction | No |
| DA lodged for any of the 3 projects | No |
Instead of a speculative one-pager, the toolkit said so — and kept the Standing Plan live regardless (see below).
The Position Wasn't Released
Before any negotiating position leaves the toolkit for a developer, it runs through a 10-point QA gate. Nardoo Plains Solar+BESS passed 9 of 10.
| QA status | Result |
|---|---|
| Sourced & settled (rate calc, allocation, 3 of 5 structural terms) | Ready |
| Needs Council-side research (admin surcharge applicability) | Blocking |
| Needs a decision (7 items — governance, developer response, procurement) | Carries forward |
Internal export was available throughout. External export to the developer stayed blocked until the one Council-side item was resolved.
Download the Sample QA Readiness Review →Both gates are ultimately about protecting Council's social licence to negotiate. A costed position released before its facts are confirmed, or a briefing drafted before the ground truth justifies it, does more damage to a council's standing with residents and developers alike than no document at all.
The Standing Plan Was Fully Live Throughout
Unlike the Briefing, Module 5's Standing Community Benefit & Local Economic Capture Plan isn't gated by construction timing — it tracks every open channel a council can access right now. For Nardoo, that meant 7 channels already open: three simultaneous CBA negotiations, a $2.56M costed local priority list sitting in the corporate plan, a thin local supplier base (34 businesses vs. a 440-worker peak) needing pre-qualification, an unformalised procurement pathway with local Traditional Owners (native title), a workforce housing site to position, a skills-training gap to negotiate as an in-kind CBA term, and an independent transmission-line touchpoint the council hadn't yet tracked.
A Toolkit That Discriminates, Not Just Produces
This pilot is a useful stress test precisely because Nardoo looks ready — three live projects, a named 440-worker peak, a council actively planning — but isn't, on the specific tests Module 5's Briefing and Module 4's Step 8 gate are each built to apply. Getting that distinction right, twice, and getting it right automatically, is what turns a document generator into something a council can actually rely on for a live negotiation.
For Nardoo specifically, the toolkit's own logic points to the next move: run the Negotiation Position Builder across all three projects now, while pre-DA leverage is at its peak — not wait for Module 5's gate to open.
All figures on this page — workforce numbers, funding gaps, project MW/MWh, benchmark ranges, and the negotiating positions and QA export referenced above — come from the fictional Nardoo Shire pilot dataset. Nardoo Shire Council, Highwind Energy Partners, Coolibah Solar Pty Ltd, and Plains Energy Storage JV are fictional entities created for this training run. Do not reuse these figures in client-facing material without swapping in a real council's verified Regional DNA Profile and Project & Impact Map.
Common Questions on This Case Study
What is a Community Benefit Agreement (CBA)?
A legally binding agreement between a renewable energy developer and the host council, negotiated before a development application can be lodged. Since Queensland's PSICBOLA framework commenced 18 July 2025, it's mandatory for wind, large-scale solar, and standalone battery storage projects. See the full explainer on the Renewables Community Benefit Toolkit page.
Why did Nardoo negotiate three CBAs at once instead of one at a time?
Because that's what actually happened on the ground — three developers lodged pre-application contact within a single four-month window. Module 2's Project & Impact Mapper is built for exactly this: mapping concurrent projects and their overlapping construction timelines (all three shared a combined 440-worker peak) so a council can sequence its negotiating leverage instead of handling each project in isolation.
How did the toolkit arrive at $1,050/MW/yr for Nardoo Ridge Wind Farm?
From a single sourced comparable — Goombi Renewable Energy Hub, the one real Queensland wind farm negotiated under the same mandated PSICBOLA regime — not a blended average across legacy and current deals. Anchoring at the rate of the most comparable recent deal, rather than an average that gets diluted by older voluntary agreements, is a deliberate choice the Benchmark Calculator and Negotiation Position Builder make together.
Why was the Local Business Readiness Briefing withheld even with three live projects and a named 440-worker peak?
Because the Briefing has its own gate: it only drafts once workforce accommodation is built, under construction, or a Development Application has been lodged. Nardoo failed all three tests, so Module 5 didn't produce a speculative document — it kept the Standing Plan live instead, which isn't gated by construction timing.
What happens when a community opposes a proposed wind or solar farm?
It's treated as a genuine regulatory risk in Queensland, not just a local objection. In 2025, a proposed 450MW wind and battery energy storage project elsewhere in the state was refused outright via a ministerial call-in after the government found the developer's community consultation had been inadequate. That's part of why the pre-lodgement Social Impact Assessment and CBA process now runs consultation through a documented, formal channel rather than leaving it informal.
Are Nardoo's figures real, or can they be reused for another council?
Nardoo Shire Council is entirely fictional — a training pilot built to stress-test all five modules against a realistic multi-project scenario. Every figure on this page is an illustrative test output, not a real negotiated outcome, and shouldn't be reused in client-facing material without swapping in a real council's own verified Regional DNA Profile and Project & Impact Map.