Queensland utility dumps plans to buy new wind project, signs PPA with small, 10-year-old wind farm instead

A Queensland government-owned energy utility has dumped an opportunity to buy a new 360 megawatt (MW) wind project, and instead signed a tiny offtake deal with an almost 10 year-old wind farm. 

CleanCo announced late Wednesday that it won’t buy the Moah Creek wind project, saying the option “does not align with its current strategic activities” given “changing energy market conditions”, referring to the state government’s scrapping of renewable energy targets and its vow to keep burning coal until 2050.

CleanCo followed this up on Thursday with news that it had signed a long term off take deal with the small Kennedy wind farm, built 10 years ago by Windlab, now controlled by iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest, and suggested a PPA is still possible with Moah Creek.

The current owners of Moah Creek, Central Queensland Power, a joint venture between Energy Estate and Renewable Energy Systems, says project will still go ahead, assuming it can land the finance.

Moah Creek is a winner of one of the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme auctions.

But the development may have other issues, given it is located right next to the Moonlight Range wind project, west of Rockhampton. That was approved by the Crisafulli government in late 2024 only to be killed off by the same government last year on what many suspect to be political rather than planning grounds.

The renewables industry in Queensland is in chaos, with many wind, solar and battery projects now forced to resubmit planning proposals, and the state “calling in” four major projects for review.

CleanCo said the decision has been driven by the need to align with the new Queensland Energy Roadmap, a document that is redirecting funding to coal and gas and explicitly ruling out the construction of new large renewable projects between 2030 and 2035.

Instead of backing 360 MW of new wind generation, CleanCo will buy 32 MW of power from the wind section of the remote Kennedy Energy Park, near Hughenden.

The tiny deal, a volume which might just be able to support up to 20,000 homes, is a decade-long offtake agreement for 75 per cent of total production from the 43 MW wind part of the Kennedy hub, to start in 2028.  

Bizarrely, it was hailed by Treasurer and energy minister David Janetzki, CleanCo Tom Metcalfe and Windlab CEO John Martin as supporting business needs in Queensland. 

Janetzki went so far as to say, in a statement, the 32 MW agreement “is about securing Queensland’s energy future” and “creating regional jobs”, even though the Kennedy Energy Park – which also included a small solar farm and a battery – was finished in 2021.

What he did note, however, is the Kennedy Energy Park sits on the proposed 500 kilovolt Copper link transmission line. There have been plans to build a much bigger wind farm at the site.

“Hughenden sits at the heart of our clean energy expansion,” he said in a statement.  

“With CopperString connecting the North West Minerals province to the national grid, we’re building the transmission highways that allow renewable energy like this wind farm to flow where it’s needed most.”

There are eight big wind projects, of which five need development approval, and one big solar project in the Hughenden area. 

Whether the government will follow through on the rhetoric that accompanied the Kennedy offtake agreement, that Hughenden is a “strategic energy hub”, and approve some or all of these projects, is uncertain, given the state’s new antipathy towards renewables.

The Queensland government and CleanCo have been approached for further comment.

The Kennedy Energy Park itself was the world’s first behind the meter solar, wind and battery project. 

It started operations in 2021 with 12 wind turbines, 15 MW of solar and 2 MW of battery capacity with two hours of storage, but was only allowed to run at full capacity in 2024 after “unimaginable challenges”.

Developer Windlab did much of the hard legwork in connecting behind-the-meter energy park to the grid, enabling the swathe of solar-battery hybrids now asking for spots in the National Energy Market (NEM).

The Kennedy Energy Park itself also has a decade-long offtake agreement with another state-owned company, CS Energy, but that will finished before the CleanCo one starts.

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