Australia's state of Queensland has officially announced commissioning a 110 MW solar power plant built with AUD 200 million ($137 million) investment of which AUD 20 million ($13.7 million) was provided as a grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
This is one of the state's 30 clean energy generators and one of five to come online in the Darling Downs region, the state government said. State Energy Minister Dr Anthony Lynham shared Queensland has over AUD 5 billion ($3.4 billion) worth of renewable energy projects either generating, underway or financially committed across Queensland with one third of the investment in the Darling Downs alone.
He added that the Darling Downs region has three more large-scale solar farms under construction.
A fixed-tilt solar project, the Darling Downs Solar Power Plant was purchased by local natural gas transmission company APA Group from the original developer Origin Energy that chose its location next to Darling Downs Power Station. It is equipped with 423,360 solar panels spread over 250-hectare land and under contract with Origin Energy which will buy all the power generated as well as Large-scale Renewable Generation Certifications (LGCs) till 2030.
Queensland is a frontrunner in Australia in terms of clean energy capacity additions – it is pursuing to achieve 50% renewable energy in the total energy mix by 2030. In October 2019, the government approved the state's largest solar energy project with 162 MW capacity proposed by Luminous Energy (see 162 MW Solar Farm Approved By Queensland Government).
Queensland also takes the top spot among states when it comes to the largest number of rooftop solar systems installed in the country (see Australian Rooftop Solar Capacity Reaches 9.48 GW).