Australia’s first and only combined cross-laminated timber and glulam manufacturer has begun construction of a purpose-built battery-charging building at its Tarpeena mill in South Australia, built from the company’s own NeXTimber CLT and glulam to power a new electric forklift fleet. It comes as Timberlink moves day-to-day operations at the site away from diesel and gas, which have long powered the plant, with the electric fleet and its dedicated charging building marking a physical step in that shift.
The forklift fleet enters service at the site in April 2026, with the building consolidating charging into a single controlled location rather than scattering it across the mill. An electric forklift fleet requires more than installing chargers; battery charging and storage demand careful ventilation and constant management, and require tighter compliance than a diesel fleet ever did.
Without a central facility, charging points would be spread across the site, multiplying the points where forklifts, people and risk intersect. The arrangement Timberlink has chosen instead pulls every charging and battery-handling task into a single building designed around them.
Wood Central understands that planning ran through a detailed HAZOP process that weighed how forklifts and traffic would be kept apart, how charging and battery handling would be controlled, and where servicing crews would need clear access. Its final location was approved through site review and mobile plant network planning, fitting the structure within existing operations rather than disrupting them.
Few mass timber projects in Australia look like this one, with NeXTimber glulam and cross-laminated timber framing a working industrial structure rather than the commercial and residential builds where the products are usually specified. Timberlink describes the building as a practical structural solution—and a working test of engineered wood, where failure is not an option —noting that the supporting infrastructure “matters just as much as the fleet itself.”
“A showcase demonstration of timber being used where performance and safety matter.”
Internationally, mass timber is increasingly specified for refuelling and charging infrastructure, which was once built almost entirely in steel, and is valued as a lower-carbon option that locks up carbon for the life of a structure. In Ireland, for example, timber engineering firm Glenfort has delivered glulam and cross-laminated timber canopies for Circle K fuel stations, including the country’s first mass timber canopy raised over an electric vehicle charging station.
Construction is underway on the same Tarpeena site as the NeXTimber by Timberlink plant, which opened in March 2024 as Australia’s first combined radiata pine CLT and GLT facility. That plant draws its feedstock from Green Triangle plantation pine processed on the adjoining structural timber line, and was built to lessen Australia’s dependence on imported mass timber and build a sovereign supply.
Work on the building follows Timberlink’s move to put the green-and-gold Australian Made kangaroo across its full product range, confirmed during Australian Made Week, with NeXTimber CLT and glulam among the lines now cleared to carry the logo. Timberlink runs two Australian sawmills, at Bell Bay in Tasmania and Tarpeena in South Australia, employing more than 600 people across both sites.
