Business as usual for former Zen Energy partner as it files plans for new big battery project

Battery storage developer Zebre is pushing ahead with planning approvals for a Queensland battery project, even though its one operational battery has been idle since July following the collapse of its former joint venture partner.

Zebre has referred to the federal EPBC the 180 megawatt (MW), 360 megawatt-hour (MWh) Noblevale battery in the old Swanbank coal mine and power station site in Ipswich, southern Queensland.

Zebre was a joint venture between Taiwan company HD Renewables and Australia’s Zen Energy, but Zen’s interest was sold to investors – believed to be note holders – just before it entered voluntary administration at the start of July.

Those dramatic events have caused Zebre’s already commissioned Templers battery in South Australia to sit idle for the past month as it is suspended from trading by the market operator.

Zebre says it is a temporary pause in trading at Templers, relating to the transition of aggregator arrangements.

“Subject to the necessary confirmation from the voluntary administrators and completion of relevant market procedures, Zebre expects the Templers BESS to resume normal operations as soon as practicable,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Cracking on in Queensland

The Noblevale battery is one of the five projects that Zebre currently has in some state of development.

And it’s just one of a number of battery projects clustering on the Swanbank industrial site, with the CleanCo’s eponymous 250 MW, 500 MWh commissioned this year with a possible second stage of the same size also to come.

But the Noblevale plan needs a federal green light because of a proliferation of iconic mammals in the area: koalas.

“Lot 1 has been selected for the BESS location to avoid environmental values including the Koala Habitat Area,” the EPBC referral says.

“The development will require the removal of 17 medium to large native canopy trees that provide habitat values for koalas,” but outside an area already mapped as ‘core koala habitat’.

“The site assessment did not detect any koala scats. Suitable koala habitat is present within the BESS site and connectivity with other koala habitat patches was noted during the site assessment, it is likely that koalas utilise site vegetation at least periodically, particularly during movement, natal dispersal and breeding.”

Zebre is arguing the project won’t be an EPBC controlled action though, because it’s leaving untouched the “core koala habitats” in all three lots that it’s leased for the project.

The referral says one lot will be left entirely alone to create a buffer with neighbours, which will have the positive side effect of protecting habitat “edges” that are critical for access to food and shelter. 

The Noblevale battery won local development approval last year, sneaking in just days before Queensland changed the rules for how batteries would be approved. 

Renew Economy has reached out to HD Renewables and three Zebre staff members who are still named as working for the company on its website or in EPBC documents.

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