Australia’s biggest wind project and eight wind and solar battery hybrids are among 19 winners of the latest and biggest auction under the federal government’s flagship Capacity Investment Scheme.
The results of tender 7, which sought 5 gigawatts of new capacity and ended up awarding 7.8 gigawatts (GW), were announced on Saturday morning by federal energy minister Chris Bowen and assistant minister Josh Wilson.
Ten of the winning projects were wind based, and nine were solar based. But wind dominated in capacity terms, with 4.8 GW versus 3 GW for solar.
The biggest winner was Origin Energy’s 1.45 GW Yanco Delta wind project in NSW, which has already won grid access rights in the south-west renewable energy zone. The most unusual winner was a major solar farm to be built on the central highlands in Tasmania.
Yanco Delta will be Origin Energy’s ‘s first new renewable project since announcing the “early closure” of the Eraring coal generator in 2022, and then twice deferring the shut down because of a lack of new capacity.
