Ikea buys three NSW solar farms in second major Australian investment

The investment arm of Ikea franchise owner Ingka Group has announced its second push into the Australian renewables market, with the purchase of three large-scale solar projects totalling 195MW.

Ingka Investments says it has bought two operational solar farms in Peak Hill and Trundle, near Parkes in central-west New South Wales, and a third – unnamed – that is under development, also in NSW.

The solar splurge follows up on the 15% stake taken by Ingka Investments in Australia’s largest permitted wind farm, Golden Plains in Victoria, just last month.

The deal with the 756MW Victorian project was announced by Golden Plains owner, TagEnergy, as the Netherlands-based Ingka Investments’ first foray into Australian renewables and one of the first deals of its kind.

The Trundle and Peak Hill solar farms, developed and operated by Enerparc Australia, are both 6MW projects, which indicates that the third, unnamed project also acquired by Ingka this week might have a capacity of around 180MW, once developed.

According to this website, Enerparc has previously had plans for an up to 300MW solar farm in the NSW New England region, called Tilbuster.

Ingka says the total production of the three Australian solar projects will be around 340GWh a year, which will be “steered contractually” to local Ingka Group operations as well as to local value chain partners and customers.

“We are delighted …to partner up once again with Enerparc in this next step in accelerating our energy production in the Asia and Pacific region,” Ingka Investments managing director Peter van der Poel said.

“With our own solar parks (and wind farms), we want to make renewable energy available throughout the IKEA value chain and beyond.”

Mirja Viinanen, CEO and chief sustainability officer at Ikea Australia said the new local investment would better diversify the company’s renewable portfolio and better match the production with consumption.

“In addition to the recently acquired stake in a wind farm in Victoria, this is the next vital step towards reaching 100% renewable energy across all operations,” Viinanen said.

“We have ambitious targets when it comes to reducing our climate footprint across Ingka Group globally, and meaningful investment like this is leading the way.”

Gloabally, Ingka Investments has invested and committed more than €3.5 billion into renewable energy projects in wind and solar power, with the aim of reducing more greenhouse gas emissions its value chain emits, by 2030.

For the German-headquartered Enerparc, which has had a presence in Australia since 2015, the deal with Ikea bolsters its own plans to develop a total of 10GW solar, globally, and another 10GW third-party solar projects by 2030.

“These and future Australian projects developed by Enerparc Australia will contribute to this strategy,” said Enerparc AG CEO and chair Christoph Koeppen.

“This transaction is a testament to Enerparc Australia’s success in developing and realizing solar projects in New South Wales led by our team of professionals based in Sydney,” added Benjamin Hannig, managing director of Australian operations.