A huge, 800 megawatt solar farm with a four-hour big battery has been awarded federal environmental approval, after wading through a mass of public objections to the state approval process.
Spark Renewable’s Dinawan solar and battery project, an 800 megawatt (MW) solar farm, which is being paired with a 356 MW /1,574 megawatt hour (MWh) battery – and also a separate wind component – is proposed for construction in the south-west of New South Wales (NSW).
It finally won state approval in April, after being referred to the IPC in January thanks to receiving 82 objections – almost entirely from people living more than 100 kms away.
The EPBC nod late last week comes with conditions, including annual compliance reporting and reporting of any non-compliance of the environmental plans agreed with federal and state authorities within two days.
The plans cover ten different grasslands, woodlands, plants, birds and reptiles that are listed as vulnerable, threatened or endangered under the EPBC Act.
The most recent approval means the project is really to start building, given it has a connection agreement in hand already thanks to winning a spot inside the South West renewable energy zone (REZ).
However, those access rights, awarded in April last year, only allocated 300 MW of capacity to the solar-battery part of the project, with two more connection points worth 350 MW and 357 MW each for wind.
Spark Renewables head of development Will Stone says they will build the 300 MW solar capacity as a stage one, with the remainder ready to go if the grid is upgraded or if one of the other projects can’t get up.
He says they’re aiming to reach a final investment decision next year and for construction to start later in 2027, once they have a grid connection approval from Transgrid.
The Dinawan project is located between Coleambally and Jerilderie in the state’s south-west, in a region with two existing solar farms (Coleambally and Darlington Point) and a number of proposed solar farms, big batteries, and wind projects, including the country’s biggest at Yanco Delta.
Map of the Dinawan Energy Hub. Image: Spark Renewables
It won one of the largest allocations in the REZ, thanks to being close to the new Dinawan substation that will feed electricity along the 300 kilovolt (kV) interstate line Project Energy Connect, and down to Victoria via VNI West.
The solar arm of the big project won a federal underwriting deal under the most recent Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) generation tender number seven in May.
The wind section won a CIS contract in the fourth tender in October last year.
The whole Dinawan vision was also fast-tracked under NSW’s newly established Investment Delivery Authority (IDA) in March.
The IDA’s four-person panel will have the power to override councils and accelerate planning approvals for proposed projects amid complaints that making major investments in NSW has become too complex and time-consuming.
That will be good news for Dinawan wind, which is still wallowing in state assessments, but comes too late for the solar and battery which are ready for launch.
If you would like to join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, you can click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
