Solar Farm At Collinsville To Proceed

Collinsville solar farm - Ratch Australia

Ratch Australia has announced it will proceed with a $100 million solar farm in Collinsville, Queensland.

The decision is a direct result of legislation for Australia’s revised Renewable Energy Target passing last month.  According to an ABC report, Ratch general manager of business management, Anil Nangia, said the 18 month RET impasse had put the project on hold.

Whitsunday Regional Council approved the application by Ratch Australia back in October 2013. The original intention was to have the plant constructed and operating by last month.

The original plan for Collinsville was for a 20 – 30MW solar facility expected to produce approximately 40 – 50 gigawatt hours a year of electricity; enough to power 6,000 to 7,500 Queensland homes. Whether the size of the plant has changed isn’t known at this stage, but construction is expected to create more than 80 jobs.

The solar farm will be developed at the site of the Collinsville Power Station, a coal fired power generation facility shuttered in 2013. Collinsville was Ratch’s only coal fired plant in Australia.

Its other fossil fuel generators are Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) based power stations; Kemerton in Western Australia (334 MW), Townsville in Queensland (234 MW) and BP Kwinana in Western Australia (118 MW).

The Collinsville facility will be Ratch-Australia’s first solar project. Ratch’s renewable energy street cred to date has been gained through wind farms, being

  • Toora Wind Farm, VIC – 21 MW
  • Windy Hill Wind Farm, QLD – 12 MW
  • Starfish Wind Farm, SA –  34.5 MW

The company is also developing the Collector Wind Farm in NSW ( 228MW) and the Mt Emerald Wind Farm in north Queensland; which was approved by the QLD state government in April.

Ratch-Australia is 80 per cent owned by Thailand’s Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding PCL and 20 per cent owned by Transfield Services Limited (TSL).

Overseas, Ratch has a total portfolio capacity of 4,500 MW; primarily thermal and hydro-power plants in Thailand and across the border in Laos.

The company says it plans to invest in approximately $1 billion of power generation assets within the next five years.

Australia’s Clean Energy Council welcomed the news of the Collinsville project, stating  it had been encouraging to see major projects moving ahead. Other restarted projects include Ararat Wind Farm and White Rock Wind Farm.

“We expect that approximately $10 billion of investment and thousands of jobs will be created across 30-50 large-scale renewable energy projects over the next five years, as well as hundreds of medium-sized projects,” said Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton.

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