Thai energy giant Banpu Energy Australia has submitted its largest project to the federal environment queue, as it waits on a slow-moving state approval process.
The 500 megawatt (MW), two hour Pinecrest battery is one of two that Banpu is leading development for, and according to data from Renewmap, the first it’s had to put into the EPBC.
The other, a 60 MW, 240 megawatt hour (MWh) battery to absorb behind-the-meter power from the 56 MW Manildra solar farm in New South Wales (NSW), is much further along the planning process.
Banpu is primarily a coal mining company, entering Australia in 2010 with the purchase of Centennial Coal.
But in 2021 it began to tinker with renewable energy, when it bought the 98 MW Beryl solar farm between Mudgee and Dubbo in central NSW, and the Manildra solar farm to the south as a package deal.
But it’s been slow going on the development front, and in ownership.
Banpu dumped the 100 MW solar project that was supposed to partner with the Pinecrest battery two years ago, which would have been Banpu’s first self-developed generation project in Australia.
But 2025 brought a flurry of activity.
It bought a half share of the 350 MW, 1,400 MWh Woreen battery in Victoria’s coal hub of the La Trobe valley for about $110 million in July, and not long after added the 103 MW, 206 MWh Kerang grid-forming battery to its portfolio as well.
And in May it lodged a NSW planning application for the Pinecrest battery.
That Pinecret project is close to 1,430 MW Mt Piper coal power station, north-west of Lithgow in New South Wales (NSW), and also to the now shuttered Wallerawang coal fired power generator.
It is one of four big battery projects mooted for the area, including a big battery next to EnergyAustralia’s Mt Piper plant, Neoen’s Great Western battery project which is to be reconfigured into an eight hour storage facility, and Greenspot’s Wallerawang 9 battery project that it is developing with Shell.
It’s also underneath a brand new 330 kilovolt (kV) power line development that will beef up the infrastructure needed to take renewable power from the Central-West Orana renewable energy zone, across the Blue Mountains to Sydney.
The EPBC referral was lodged in early April and opened for public review on Friday.
It includes the fact that Banpu is currently subject to a Development Control Order for its Beryl solar farm over landscaping that didn’t meet the permit conditions.
The developer had to start an “enhanced planting program”, planting the 870 missing trees as well as an extra 1000.
The Pinecrest site, however, is not in good condition, according to the EPBC referral.
“The project area is generally cleared of substantial vegetation and is understood to have been used historically for agricultural purposes, as evidenced by the prevalence of exotic pasture species across much of the site, although also noting the existence of mining infrastructure and electricity transmission infrastructure on the land and multiple mining operations surrounding the project area,” the referral says.
It contains 28.2 hectares of exotic grassland, 2.9 hectares of Carex grassland and 1.3 hectares of woodland in poor, regenerating, and planted condition.
Removing some of this, which would need to happen to put the battery on the site, might harm nine species of mammal, bird, bat and butterfly, including koalas and gang-gang cockatoos, that have been seen in the area but not on the site, the referral says.
The only reason why the project is likely to fall under the controlled action category – where federal bureaucrats must oversee the project – is because if Banpu is asked to upgrade a lane going into the site, it will mean the removal of nine mature and 88 regenerating black gum trees.
The “naturally small area and patchiness” of these trees means they have been steadily cleared by farmers and housing developments over time, and populations are not recovering after fires nor coping well with competition, the NSW Office of Environment andHeritage says.
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