Investor interest in plans to open up the Central West of New South Wales to more renewable energy has proven overwhelming, topping $38 billion, or nine times the government’s available capacity.
The government program was designed to attract investors to build 3000 megawatts (MW) of new wind and solar farms worth an estimated $4.4 billion in the state’s first renewable energy zone around Dubbo.
The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) newspaper reports, it has instead drawn proposals for 27,000MW in 113 registrations of interest, the conservative NSW state Liberal-National government said.
To support the development of the Central-West Orana zone, state Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean announced today a quadrupling of support to more than $40 million.
The SMH reports eventually both the state and federal governments are expected to spend a billion dollars each in part to strengthen grid connections to three renewable energy zones in NSW, inside which they will accelerate planning processes, co-ordinate designs and spur the involvement of local communities.
The projects in the Central West are expected to bring 450 construction jobs to the region and generate enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes when completed.
The SMH reports the state government identified the Central West region as one of its three priority areas for luring clean energy investments.
All three, including in the Riverina, near Hay; and New England, around Armidale, benefit from having good wind and solar resources but also proximity to existing transmission links and population centres.
“I want NSW households and businesses to have some of the cheapest and cleanest electricity in the world and this zone will bring in the low-cost solar and wind to do that,” Mr Kean said.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro, who joined Mr Kean for the announcement of the zone’s progress today in Dubbo, said the “phenomenal response” from investors to the zone would be a boon for a region “doing it tough from drought and now the COVID-19 pandemic”.
“By co-ordinating development in a strategic way, renewable energy zones also help us get the land-use planning right, and renewables built in places that work for the community, not just developers,” Mr Barilaro said.
The tumbling costs of new solar and wind farms mean such plants can be built at as little as half the cost of new coal- or gas-fired power stations, and typically much faster.
The challenge for governments, generators and regulators is increasingly how to integrate the largely intermittent sources of new electricity while maintaining grid stability.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on Monday published its report of the 2019-20 summer.
The report showed how close the power sector came to widespread outages amid periods of record heat, bushfires and also record demand for electricity.
While 3000MW of new capacity added from new renewables since the previous summer helped, the new wind and solar farms also added to the complexity of forecasting, especially when smoke and dust affected output.
The push to open up renewable zones in inland NSW is part of the landmark $2 billion deal agreed and formally signed early this year between the federal Liberal-National government and its NSW counterpart.
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