Billionaire Forrest plans huge Australian renewable energy park
Green power facility would be able to power up to a third of the homes in New South Wales, it is claimed
Australian green power giant Squadron Energy, owned by billionaire Andrew Forrest, is planning to build a giant renewable energy park featuring 2GW of wind and solar farms hooked up to one of the world’s largest energy storage systems.
Squadron Energy this week submitted a scoping report for the Koorakee Energy Park to the government of New South Wales (NSW).
The Koorakee plans feature a 1GW wind farm – with up to 167 turbines at a maximum height of 270 metres – alongside a solar facility with the same capacity and a 1GW/12GWh energy storage system that could hold power for up to 12 hours.
A 12GWh energy storage system would be one of the largest globally. Currently, the largest lithium-ion battery system – the Moss Landing facility in the US – holds 3.3GWh of power, while the world’s largest thermal energy storage facility holds 5.9GWh.
Squadron's latest project, Koorakee, is planned over around 58,000 hectares in the southwestern Riverina region of NSW.
Squadron says Koorakee could power up to a third of the households in NSW and would help replace the four existing coal-fired power stations in the state that are being progressively closed down.
The project is within NSW’s South West Renewable Energy Zone, which was declared by the NSW government in 2020 and is slated to have almost 4GW of capacity.
Koorakee is expected to take between two and three years to complete, with an aim of bringing it online during 2028-2029.