The ACT economy is set for a massive boost with plans for a $650million gas-fired power station twice as big as the original one proposed for Tuggeranong on the ACT-NSW border.
ActewAGL revealed yesterday it was negotiating to buy a privately owned, 210ha grazing property at Williamsdale, south of Canberra, for the project.
ActewAGL chief executive John Mackay said talks were under way with TransGrid, which owns NSW's power lines, to share in the purchase.
While the property was in both NSW and the ACT, the plant would be on the territory's side of the border.
A business case should be completed by the end of this year for a 500MW gas-fired peaking plant, which generates electricity when the price rises in peak demand.
This is more than double the size of the 210MW plant proposed for Tuggeranong, which was reduced to 28MW after an outcry from residents.
Combined with the $1 billion data centre and power plant at Tuggeranong and $700 million back-up data centre at Belconnen, it brings to $2.4 billion the total infrastructure investment proposed by ActewAGL and its consortium partners, Technical Real Estate and Galileo.
Mr Mackay said the Williamsdale site was 8km from Tharwa and away from large populations.
A gas pipeline would run along the Monaro Highway to the site near a substation connected to the Canberra power supply and the national grid.
Mr Mackay was confident the Williamsdale business case would stack up because Australia was short of power generation.
He said he had announced the Williamsdale project to end speculation ActewAGL had bailed out of building a new peaking plant.
''I am not fussed about the political fall-out, only to the extent it damages our business objectives,'' Mr Mackay said.
''I have tried to stay out of politics but tried to set the record straight.
''If, as a result of the political storm the data centre and gas-fired generator goes down the drain it will be a sad day for us ...''
News of the project comes on the same day Chief Minister Jon Stanhope faces an Opposition no-confidence vote over his handling of the power station project.
The Canberra Times can also reveal the Government has kept confidential a study which recommends taking the original power station out of Hume's industrial zone.
The taxpayer-funded Hume Industrial Planning Study prepared for the ACT Planning and Land Authority which recommends relocating the original power station out of the Hume industrial zone will be issued at a rally outside the Legislative Assembly at noon today.
Rally organisers will call for an alternative to the Tuggeranong site and for an independent and expert environmental impact statement for the project.
Spokesman Simon Byrne said the Hume and Southern Broadacre studies were not publicly available, yet were referenced in the power station consortium's preliminary assessment filed with the ACTPLA.