A week after gaining grid approval for its first big battery project, Zen Energy has detailed plans to build a 100 megawatt (MW) solar farm and a 200MW battery with up to eight hours storage near Gympie in Queensland, as part of its newly announced Zebre joint venture.
Plans for the Hookey Creek hybrid project joined the queue for federal environmental assessment on Friday, seeking the all-clear to build the solar and battery project on grazing land around 23 km north-west of Gympie and 7km south-east of Woolooga.
In referral documents submitted to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, Zen says a letter and one-page project brochure are being distributed to neighbours within 5km of the project site, while an introductory meeting with the Traditional Owners of the Gympie region – the Kabi Kabi – was held in April.
The Hookey Creek project is part of a deal with Taiwanese equity partner HD Renewable Energy Co (HDRE), announced in March, to co-develop around 695 megawatts (MW) of multi-hour big batteries and 100 MW of solar across three Australian states.
Taiwan-listed HDRE, valued at more than $1.1 billion, in November signed up to spend $43 million on a 9.7 per cent stake in the Ross Garnaut-backed Zen, and co-develop and manage a 1.4 gigawatt (GW) solar and storage pipeline through a joint venture dubbed Zebre.
The March deal, backed by $A14 million from HDRE, was to acquire the development rights of four greenfield battery and hybrid solar projects in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland with a total capacity of around 795MW and “potential for further expansion.”
The investment finalised HDRE’s acquisition of 70 per cent of the projects, which it will progress with Zen retaining 30 per cent on the Zebre platform.
Among the four projects was Zen’s Wagga Wagga BESS in the NSW Riverina region, which has a planned capacity of 105MW/420MWh. Vague details about the other three projects included a solar-storage hybrid facility in south-east Queensland, now revealed to be Hookey Creek.
EPBC referral documents say the solar farm, and the battery – which could end up with four hours of storage (800 MWh) or eight hours (1600 MWh) – and ancillary infrastructure would be developed across 263.32 hectares spanning two freehold lots on “largely unimproved land predominately used for agricultural grazing.”
Zen says it is also considering grazing sheep among the solar panels to allow continued agricultural use of the land.
It says access to the site will be provided via an existing road developed as part of the Woolooga solar sarm, a 222 MW PV array with an up to 640 megawatt-hour (MWh) BESS that is being built next door by Lightsource bp.
Zen last week announced that its Templers battery in South Australia, another project in the Zebre joint venture, had received its grid connection approval and is now working through the commissioning phase.
See Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia for more information.
