The tunnel boring machines (TBMs) excavating the northern section of Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop East twin tunnels will be powered by Australia’s first Indigenous-owned energy retailer.

Yurringa Energy, founded by Daniel Briggs, will supply 100 per cent renewable power for the four TBMs which will carve the 10-kilometres of tunnels between Glen Waverley and Box Hill.

Briggs said it means a lot to the Yurringa Energy team to be playing a role in building a rail network that will serve Victorians for generations.

“It’s quite a privilege and an honour to not only be operating a business on the scale that we are, but to be a part of Victoria’s history,” he said.

“This legacy is really important. We’ll always be known to have been one of the suppliers of energy for the tunnel boring machines on the Suburban Rail Loop.”

Yurringa Energy will supply power to Terra Verde – the consortium delivering the northern tunnels section of the SRL East between Glen Waverley and Box Hill, comprised of Webuild, GS Engineering and Construction Australia, and Bouygues Construction Australia.

SRL East is the first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop, a new orbital rail line that will connect  every major train line from Cheltenham to the west, via Melbourne Airport, and improve access to housing, jobs, schools, universities and hospitals in Melbourne’s middle suburbs.

SRL East will connect key employment, health, education and retail centres, including Monash and Deakin universities, with underground stations to be built in Cheltenham, Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley, Burwood and Box Hill.

Passengers will no longer need to travel through Melbourne CBD to get to suburban destinations, slashing travel times. The Victorian Government says trains will be running by 2035.

Four TBMs have been ordered for the northern section of the tunnels. The first two are being assembled on site ready to start tunnelling later in 2026, heading south towards Glen Waverley. The next two will launch next year and will dig north towards Box Hill.

Each TBM will measure more than 100 metres in length, with a cutterhead 7.28 metres in diameter. They will be earth pressure balance machines, to suit local ground conditions and minimise impacts on the surface.

The TBMs will be assembled at Burwood, where a TBM launch site has been constructed. Acoustic sheds have been built to reduce the noise impacts of construction, and preparations are underway to excavate the underground space where the new station will be built.

All power provided to the TBMs by Yurringa Energy will be 100 per cent renewable – and the energy demands will be significant.

However, it’s not entirely new territory for Yurringa Energy, who previously supplied 137.5 gigawatt-hours of green energy to power site compounds and the TBMs helping deliver the 6.5-kilometre road tunnels between Watsonia and Bulleen as part of Melbourne’s North-East Link project.

“The North East Link was a real learning curve for us,” said Briggs. “It was the first time a renewable energy contract of that kind was awarded to an Aboriginal-owned company. It was also the first contract that we ever won.

“Our work on that project has given us more understanding and knowledge of the transport and infrastructure industries, and we are carrying that understanding and knowledge forward to other projects.”

Peter Bolanis, Supply Chain Director at Terra Verde, said the selection of Yurringa Energy for the SRL East project is “a testament to their ability to compete with the big players and provide a solution that ultimately means success to the project.”

Briggs is proud of contributing to Australia’s progress towards Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“Globally, there is a transition towards renewable energy,” he said. “There needs to be more incentives and encouragement for the rail industry to consider using green energy and alternative fuels.”

SRL East is one of the largest construction projects currently underway in Australia. More than 3300 people are working on the project, with up to 8000 direct local jobs expected to be created over the life of the build. A major priority for Yurringa Energy is providing jobs for First Nations people.

“Yurringa Energy is proudly First Nations owned and we are a leader in providing employment opportunities for First Nations people in our company, but this only happens by having profitable, financially sustainable First Nations businesses,” Briggs said.

“As we continue to grow and win more contracts like SRL East, we will be able to scale our workforce. Employing First Nations people is a major part of who we are and what we do.”

Briggs, a former criminal lawyer, traded his career in the courtroom for the energy sector after deciding he wanted a change in direction.

“My upbringing and community shaped my thinking around what a business could achieve,” he said.

“I wanted to make a difference – and that’s what Yurringa Energy is doing.”