Australia’s biggest solar and battery hybrid project planned at site of abandoned “dud” coal mine

The site of a controversial coal mine – originally designed to support a new coal fired power station in NSW – is to be developed into what will surely be biggest co-located solar and battery storage hybrid projects in Australia’s main grid.

Pacific Partnerships, part of the listed engineering and construction company Cimic, announced on Tuesday that it will build a 700 megawatt (MW) of solar and up to 1,600 megawatt hours (MWh) of battery storage at Cobbora, where the state government had a decade ago planned a new coal mining project before abandoning the controversial proposal.

The plan for the Cobbora coal mine, near Dunedoo in the state’s central west, included a proposal for a new coal fired generator and was described as the “dud deal of the century” in 2014 by the then treasurer Mike Baird.

The land parcels for the coal project were sold by the state government and the solar and battery project in its place was first proposed by Sydney-based renewable energy developer Marble Energy.

The rights to that project have now been bought by Pacific Partnerships, which has massively upsized the battery component from an original 200 MW and 200 MWh. It will develop the project and hire its sister company UGL to build and operate it.

“Cimic is committed to Australia’s energy transition and is developing the large-scale renewable generation assets and infrastructure required to support it,” group chairman Juan Santamaria said in a statement.

“NSW is part of our strategic new energy focus as we expand our diversified national portfolio of assets and contribute to the Australian Government’s commitments to reach net zero emissions by 2050.”

The Cobbora project is located within the Central West Orana Renewable Energy Zone (CWO REZ), which is a key part of the NSW government roadmap to replace its ageing coal fired power stations with renewables and storage.

The project is located 55km east of Dubbo on mostly cleared grazing land and is expected to continue to host sheep grazing when the solar farm is operational.

It will be Cimic’s second big solar project, following the newly completed Glenrown solar farm in Victoria, and the company says it plans to repeat the benefit sharing program with the local community from the project.

An Environmental Impact Statement for Cobbora is due to be submitted to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) in late 2024, before being placed on public exhibition for community and stakeholder feedback.

“The Cobbora Solar Farm will be located on a low, undulating landscape. This makes it an ideal site for a solar farm development,” Marble Energy co-director Tim Kirk said in a statement.

See also Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia.