ACEN proposes agrisolar project in New England renewable energy zone

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Phillipine-headquartered renewable energy developer Acen Australia has submitted a proposal to the Australian government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act (EPBC Act) to develop a 320 MW grid-scale solar and 1,400 MWac two-hour battery energy storage system (BESS) 24 kilometres southeast of Armidale, New South Wales (NSW).

The Deeargee solar farm is proposed to be built on 1,002 hectares (ha) buffered by an additional 542 ha and generate enough electricity to power 160,000 homes annually via approximately 750,000 solar modules.

The application includes allowances for a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a capacity of up to 1,400MWac two-hour energy storage, which may be configured as 700 MW four‑hour energy storage, according to the submitted documents., delivering as much as 2.8 GWh of energy.

It would be located five kilometres south of its 521 MW Stage One New England Solar plant and also be part of the New England Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), connected via a new transmission line to the REZ infrastructure or via an existing 330 kV line.

The proposed Deeagree solar farm and BESS will be located in the New England Renewable Energy Zone.

Image: ACEN

To be built on land currently in use for grazing and cropping, Acen intends to continue enabling sheep grazing on portions of the array areas, proposing that indirect (including partial shading from solar modules) rather than direct loss or removal of vegetation would have the most impact on normal agricultural operations.

A detailed protocol will be developed to ensure biosecurity is maintained and accounts for the irregular boundary of the project, which takes into account senstive environmental factors.

Acen says the project’s lifespan is approximately 30 years but beyond 2054 the infrastructure would be decommissioned and the disturbance footprint returned to its pre‑existing land use plus all dismantled and decommissioned infrastructure and equipment will be recycled, where possible. The array’s life could be extened to 50 years if panels are upgraded during its initial operation timeframe.

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