Australia’s Ark Energy locks in AU$1.3 billion for Richmond Valley as 150MW Lansdown Photo voltaic West joins EPBC queue
It covers the project’s precedence stage: a 200MWac solar PV energy plant co-positioned with a 275MW/2,200MWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery vitality storage system (BESS), positioned roughly 25km south of Casino in Contemporary South Wales’ northern rivers station.
Financial shut is focused for September 2026, with constructing anticipated to originate in October 2026 and operations focused for January 2029. The project is the first bask in-to-bask in kind in Ark Energy’s portfolio to place FID.
The milestone follows a kind timeline that Ark Energy done in four years.
Contemporary South Wales planning approval became granted in October 2025, federal environmental clearance underneath the EPBC Act followed in December 2025, and grid connection approval from AEMO and transmission community provider Transgrid became secured in June 2026.
Richmond Valley became furthermore highlighted on the time as amongst the first hybrid solar-plus-storage projects in the Nationwide Electrical energy Market (NEM) to characteristic through a single point of connection using grid-forming inverter expertise.
The plump popular configuration extends to 435MW of solar and a 475MW/3,148MWh BESS.
The project holds a Prolonged-Period of time Energy Service Settlement (LTESA) underneath the NSW Electrical energy Infrastructure Roadmap and is listed on the Australian executive’s Nationwide Renewable Energy Precedence Record.
South Korean vitality firm Hanwha Energy is supplying the BESS, with Elecnor Australia engaged as early contractor for engineering and make.
Ark Energy CEO Michael Choi said the decision reflected steady backing from Korea Zinc.
“This approval represents a steady endorsement from Korea Zinc and confirms its persisted dedication to supporting the Richmond Valley project and Ark Energy’s speak ambitions,” he said.
The project is anticipated to again bigger than 850 protest and indirect jobs during peak constructing and generate roughly AU$180 million in native expenditure.
Quinbrook submits 150MW Lansdown Photo voltaic West project to Australia’s EPBC Act
Australian infrastructure investor Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners (QIP) has submitted a 150MW solar PV energy plant in Queensland for review underneath Australia’s Atmosphere Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
The referral, to be developed by Brisbane-based mostly renewable vitality developer Non-public Energy Partners, covers the Lansdown Photo voltaic West project, which is roughly 4-6km south-west of Woodstock and 40km south of Townsville.
Development is focused to originate in January 2028, with operations planned through to 2060.
The project involves a solar array of up to 150MWac, a co-positioned BESS with an have an effect on output of 250MWp and an 8-hour storage duration, a 33/275kV substation, and a 30-metre broad transmission line connecting to Powerlink Queensland’s contemporary double circuit 275kV Strathmore to Ross line, which runs adjoining to the position.
The total field spans roughly 534 hectares, with the bodily disturbance footprint holding 155 hectares. The land has traditionally been pale for cattle grazing and is characterised by cleared and modified vegetation, with patches of remnant woodland and riparian corridors along Lansdowne Creek.
The project’s said cause is to bask in renewable vitality to the Northern Quartz Campus interior the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct (LEIP), a kind furthermore being superior by Non-public Energy Partners that goals to convert Queensland-mined quartz into high-purity silicon for solar modules and semiconductors.
The solar farm would supplement out there community skill and present baseload and firming electricity to the campus. It’s miles positioned between the Lansdown Photo voltaic North kind, which proposes up to 400MW of expertise, and the Northern Quartz Campus itself.
A busy EPBC pipeline
The Lansdown Photo voltaic West referral provides to a rising queue of Queensland solar and storage projects working through federal environmental review at a time when the EPBC Act framework itself is in transition.
The Atmosphere Protection Reform Act 2025, handed by the Commonwealth Parliament in November 2025, launched a brand new streamlined 30-business-day review pathway for non-fossil-gas projects and modified the old “no earn loss” offsets new with a “earn manufacture” requirement.
The Tidy Energy Investor Neighborhood has since known as on the federal executive to prioritise fixed and nicely timed implementation of the reformed framework, warning that various severe regulatory instruments, including Nationwide Environmental Requirements and the definition of “earn manufacture,” remain underneath kind earlier than a December 2026 plump graduation decrease-off date.
The wander at which projects are being processed underneath the contemporary framework varies. Tonic Neighborhood obtained federal environmental clearance for a 75MW solar-plus-storage project in Western Australia interior four weeks of submission in early 2026, with the department determining the Binningup Photo voltaic Facility wouldn’t be a managed motion as a result of predominantly cleared and degraded situation of the position.
At the bigger halt of the size, Wooderson Photo voltaic Development Co secured EPBC Act clearance for a 450MW solar project with 3,600MWh of co-positioned battery storage in Queensland in February 2026, furthermore labeled as not a managed motion, clearing a key regulatory hurdle for that project’s kind.
