Scope

The Asian Renewable Energy Hub was seeking to develop a significant renewable energy project in the Shire of East Pilbara with a new town to house the operations workforce and their families. We were engaged to undertake modelling to understand the potential population, dwelling and land-use requirements for the proposed town.

Approach

Employment was broken down by different types to understand the potential additional population that could be associated with them, including, FIFO, contractor and permanent. Benchmarks were developed for each employment type to estimate additional family members, number of children and persons not in the labour force that would locate in the proposed town. Service ratios were developed to estimate the land required for population related infrastructure such as commercial centres, recreational facilities and health facilities.

Outcome

A customisable model that can be used to develop dwelling and land requirement estimates based on new employment in a given region. A number of variables can be adjusted including family composition, employment type (i.e. FIFO, DIDO, Contract, Permanent), dwelling density, among others.