Queensland Energy Minister John Mickel urged Queensland to take a proactive approach to energy investment while speaking to business, industry and community representatives in Gladstone today.

"It is expected that there will need to be $12 billion invested in more than 10,000 megawatts of new generation capacity across the National Electricity Market by 2015," Mickel said.

"Given the high quality and low cost of Queensland fuel sources, much of it in Central Queensland, it is reasonable to expect a proportion of this investment may occur in this region."

Mickel said the Central Queensland region already accounted for almost half of Queensland's total electricity generating capacity and potential developments in the state's gas markets looked likely to double the use of gas in the Gladstone area.

He said world-first projects in clean-coal technology and exciting developments in gas as an energy source would build on the region's reputation as a powerhouse for the state.

Mickel said separate projects being undertaken by government-owned corporations CS Energy and Stanwell and a number of private parties were the driving force behind the energy advancements, developing demonstration plants for clean coal technology.

"CS Energy has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with an international consortium to work on demonstration of clean coal generation through a project to convert one of the existing Callide A coal-fired generating units to oxy-firing," Mickel said.

"And Stanwell, through its subsidiary ZeroGen, is investigating a world-first project to demonstrate the viability of integrating coal gasification, gas-fired generation and carbon capture and storage to produce low-emission baseload electricity.

"Drilling for test sites for carbon storage has begun in the Springsure/Emerald area."

Mickel said both projects had the potential to develop world-leading technology and to lay the platform for Queensland's sustainable energy production into the next century.