Western Australia’s (WA) Regional Joint Development Assessment Panel has unanimously approved Ace Power’s plan for a 200 MW solar farm and 200 MW / 400 MWh battery energy storage system to be built near the township of Narrogin in the state’s southwest.
The $400 million (USD 260 million) Narrogin Solar Farm and battery hybrid project will see a 200 MW PV power plant and four-hour capacity battery built on farmland near the town, about 190 kilometres southeast of state capital Perth. The project will connect to the grid at the Narrogin South Substation, enabling power to be exported into WA’s Wholesale Energy Market (WEM).
The state’s approval of the project has been welcomed by the local council with Shire of Narrogin President Leigh Ballard saying the region is rapidly emerging as a key hub for clean energy investment.
The Ace site is directly adjacent to Melbourne-based developer South Energy’s already-approved 200 MW / 800 MWh Narrogin battery energy storage project. Other proposed major renewable energy projects within the shire’s boundaries include Lightsource bp’s Narrogin East hybrid project that is to include 150 MW of solar, 250 MW wind, and a 200 MW battery, while Neoen and Acconia are planning large-scale wind farms in the region.
Ballard said the projects form part of the emerging Narrogin Renewable Energy Zone and promise to create employment, civil and trade opportunities within the region.
“This second approval strengthens Narrogin’s role as a renewable energy hub,” he said. “It brings us another step closer to our vision of regional economic transformation … but that transformation must come with legacy housing solutions and shared benefits.”
Ballard said the shire residents welcome the energy transition but want to be included as “equal partners, not passive hosts to infrastructure that primarily serves distant populations.”
The council had been seeking to make community benefits a formal condition of the approval but the DAP has instead included them as advice notes, with the developer “strongly encouraged” to voluntarily engage with the shire’s public art strategy and its community enhancements fund policy.
Sydney-headquartered Ace, backed by Germany’s clean energy holding Pelion Green Future, is also strongly encouraged to develop a regional participation plan, “clearly demonstrating their strategic commitment to maximising local labour, trade, and industry involvement.”
The decision follows the recent release of the state government’s draft guidelines on community benefits from renewable energy projects which said it would ensure “all Western Australians benefit from the energy transition.”
The proposed guidelines include 150 to $800 $500 to $1,000 per MW per year for solar projects and $500 to $1,000 for wind projects.
“We’ve long called for a formal mechanism to ensure our community shares in the prosperity generated by projects hosted here,” Ballard said. “While it’s disappointing that this latest DAP approval did not embed a community enhancement fund as we had recommended, we take heart from the draft guidelines, many of the principles reflect what we’ve been long and hard advocating for.”
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.