Public comments are now open for the potentially 20 gigawatt (GW) Muckaty solar project, the latest stage for Northern Territory (NT) authorities to decide just how it will assess the massive venture.
The massive project is at the earliest stages of planning, with the NT Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in charge of the environmental assessment after the federal EPBC deemed it a controlled action in December last year — and sent the project back to the territory to handle.
The scope of the Muckaty project is for big solar blocks, each sized at 250 megawatts (MW), supported by batteries that can be built in stages as offtake agreements are signed – likely with data centre operators.
Each generation site is expected to take approximately five years to construct and would operate for approximately 70 years following commissioning, say the draft terms of reference for an environmental impact statement.
Sun Cable, which is now majority owned by software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, has reduced the possible development area to a space of slightly more than 54,000 hectares, across a total area of almost 136,000 hectares, north of Tennant Creek.
