Seven days after getting grid approval for its major battery project, Zen Energy released plans to build a 100 MW solar farm and a 200 MW battery with up to eight hours of storage at Gympie, Queensland, as part of the Zebre venture. At the end of last week, the Hookey Creek hybrid plan joined environmental reviews and hoped to be cleared for building the solar and battery project near 23 km northwest of Gympie and 7km southeast of Woolooga.
According to the referral under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, Zen claims that project brochures are being delivered to nearby neighbors and a meeting with the Kabi Kabi—who are the traditional owners of the Gympie area—took place in April.
The Hookey Creek project comes as part of an agreement with Taiwanese partner HD Renewable Energy Co. (HDRE), announced in March, to develop renewable energy projects in Australia.
In November, HDRE, which has a market capitalization of more than $1.1 billion and is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, invested $43 million to get a 9.7 percent stake in Zen and will jointly build and manage a 1.4 GW solar and storage pipeline under the name Zebre.
With funding from HDRE of $A14 million, March agreed to acquire the development rights for four battery and hybrid solar projects in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, totaling about 795 MW and including room for possible expansion.
After finalizing the investment, HDRE owns 70 percent of all the projects, and Zen will continue to work on them at 30 percent on Zebre.
Zen chose to develop Zen’s Wagga Wagga BESS in the NSW Riverina region, and its planned capacity is 105 MW/420 MWh. Information about the other three projects was also vague, but it turned out that the solar-storage hybrid facility in southeast Queensland is actually Hookey Creek.
The EPBC says the solar farm, battery that might hold eight hours of electricity (1600 MWH), and all related infrastructure would go up on two freehold lots spread across 263.32 hectares. The surrounding land is mainly unimproved, used for grazing by farmers.
Zen is planning to place sheep among the solar panels, which will help people farm the land even after it becomes a solar farm.
It states that access to the site will be given using a nearby road coming from the Woolooga solar farm, a large solar plant and BESS that Lightsource bp is developing outside the mine.
Zen has said that two weeks ago, its Templers battery in South Australia, which is part of the Zebre deal, received the go-ahead from Australia’s grid operator and is now being tested and set up for full operation.
