A “24/7” solar battery project backed by gas giant joins EPBC queue, as another gets green light

Fresh plans to develop a 141 megawatt solar farm with up to four hours of battery energy storage near Forbes, in central western New South Wales, have joined the queue for federal environmental assessment.

The Forbes Solar Farm is being developed jointly by Ace Power and Osaka Gas Australia around 11 km from the township of the same name and roughly 378 km west of Sydney.

According to documents referred for assessment under the federal EPBC Act, the solar farm would be “operational 24/7” with energy production from the solar farm and the 480 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery charging and discharging during the day and, potentially, at night.

Australia’s biggest operating solar hybrid facility – at Cunderdin in Western Australia – has used its storage to save output to the evening peaks, and has also fed power into the grid through the night, albeit at low levels.

The proposed project area at Forbes is divided into several fenced paddocks which are described as having “a long history of agricultural use for sheep grazing and has been extensively cropped with non-native grasses and other crops.”

Ace Power has a large number of projects in various stages of the development pipeline around Australia, ranging across solar, wind, battery storage and various combinations of the three.

A recent addition to the EPBC queue is a 450 MW, 1,800 MWh battery the company proposes to install around 700 metres from the Tumut 3 Power Station, in what would be the first big battery to be built alongside the Snowy Hydro scheme in NSW.

In April, two of its flagship battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Queensland – the 900 MW / 3600 MWh Nebo BESS and the 500 MW / 2000 MWh Raglan BESS – were both waved through the EPBC process.

The Forbes Solar Farm is part of a 2023 deal with Osaka Gas, dubbed Project Genesis, to jointly develop a portfolio of PV and battery projects with a total capacity of more than 500MW in NSW and Queensland.

“The partnership with Ace launches our revived focus on renewables investments, in line with our carbon neutral vision which has significant strategic synergies with our long-term e-methane goals,” Osaka Gas Energy Oceania director Yo Otsuka said at the time.

Osaka Gas Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Osaka Gas, also known as Daigas Group, which is the second largest gas utility in Japan and has a global presence in the energy sector.

Green Gold gets green light

Plans to build a 108 megawatt solar farm with a 91 megawatt-hour battery system north of Adelaide in South Australia have been give the all-clear by the federal government after being waved through its environmental assessment process.

Green Gold Energy’s proposed Morgan solar and battery project was this week determined “not a controlled action” by the federal environment minister, freeing it from full assessment under the EPBC Act.

The South Australia-based developer first revealed plans for the project in 2020, alongside another 185 megawatt (MW) project in the south-eastern SA town of Australia Plains.

Green Gold said at the time that it had been developing the early stages of the projects over a period of 18 months and had consulted with local communities.

According to the project website, the Morgan solar and battery project will be developed over a 622-hectare block of land approximately 8 km east of the township of Morgan, in the Stuart region of South Australia.

The block of land has been secured by the project owner since 2022 and the solar and battery project received state development approval (DA) on July 11th, 2024, the website says.

According to the EPBC referral documents, the plan is to start building the solar and battery project from the end of 2025 and have it operational by 2028. It will connect to the grid via ElectraNet’s North West Substation.