Westpac taps NSW solar farm in shift to 100% renewables

One Step Off The Grid

Westpac has become the fourth Australian company – and the third major bank – to sign up to the global RE100 movement, with a commitment to source the equivalent of 100 per cent of its global electricity consumption through renewable sources by 2025.

The pledge was delivered on Wednesday, alongside news of the first phase of the bank’s renewables transition – a power purchase agreement with the Bomen Solar Farm, planned for construction in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

The PPA commits Westpac to purchase just over a quarter of the solar farm’s output – the project is expected to be operational by mid-2020 – under a 10 year agreement covering both the electricity and LGCs.

In a statement on Wednesday, Westpac said the deal would deliver a 45 per cent transition to renewables by 2021 for the bank globally, as well as providing greater cost certainty on its electricity spend.

As Giles Parkinson reported here today on RenewEconomy, Westpac’s offtake deal with the 120MW Bomen solar farm is part of a broader deal that marks the beginning of a tectonic shift in the make-up of Australia’s energy sector.

That is the acquisition of the $188 million NSW Bomen solar project by major network owner Spark Infrastructure, as a first move into what that company calls its “Value Build” strategy, beyond owning just regulated network assets and into a high renewables and decentralised grid.

To read the full story on RenewEconomy sister site One Step Off The Grid, click here…