Construction begins on 400MW solar farm in central-west NSW, with battery to follow

Sophie Vorrath8 November 2022

Construction of a 400MW solar farm – and potentially a 200MWh big battery – will go ahead in central New South Wales, with developer ACEN Australia making a final investment decision on the project after securing a connection to the grid.

ACEN Australia says the final go-ahead for the Stubbo Solar project in the NSW Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone follows the signing of a connection agreement with Lumea – the commercial arm of network company Transgrid.

The renewables developer says it has also locked in a PV module supply contract this week, and finalised other key contracts for the project to progress, following a funding boost from a debt raise last month.

The $600 million debt raiseattracted a $75 million investmentfrom the federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, to help fast-track the delivery of ACEN’s 8GW Australian renewables pipeline of solar, wind, battery and pumped hydro.

ACEN Australia CEO Anton Rohner says the finalisation and signing of a network connection agreement with Lumea was a “major milestone” in moving to the committed stage of the project.

“The ability to get the connection agreement done illustrates the value of ACEN Australia’s strategy of connecting into secure and robust parts of the Transgrid Network,” Rohner said.

Among its more notable projects in Australia are the 400MWh big battery, the first stage of which is currently being built alongside what will be – for a time at least – the biggest solar PV project in Australia, the 720MW New England solar farm in NSW.
ACEN says construction of Stubbo solar farm will start in late 2022 and create up to 400 jobs, and then 10 ongoing jobs, post-construction.