News

Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) strengthened its position in the Australian renewable energy project development market by announcing two significant deals in a single day.

First, the company said it had agreed to acquire AGL Energy’s 19.9 per cent interest in Australian wind farm developer Tilt Renewables, moving to 99.9 per cent ownership.

Tilt is one of the more active players in Australia’s wind industry bringing the 396 MW Rye Park Wind Farm in NSW on-line last year and looking to close FID this year for the 288 MW Palmer Wind Farm in South Australia and 148 MW Waddi Wind Farm in Western Australia.

Tilt also recently started operating its 100 MW / 200 MWh Latrobe Valley BESS in Victoria.

Referring to the AGL interest acquisition QIC Global Infrastructure Partner Patrick Mulholland said, “We are energised by the growth unlocked through this acquisition, which will drive a range of industry partnerships and new investment opportunities, including in energy storage, across Queensland and Australia.”

And it didn’t take much time for these new investment opportunities to be realised, on the same day QIC announcing it had signed an exclusivity agreement “to deliver EDP’s first large utility-scale Australian project, Punchs Creek Renewable Energy Project, in Queensland’s Toowoomba region”.

Punchs Creek will consist of a 400 MW AC solar farm co-located with a 400 MW / 1600 MWh battery energy storage system, and is expected to reach financial close next year.

Stage 1 was acquired earlier this year by EDP Renewables from original developer SkyLab Australia, which still has rights to stage 2.

QIC also owns 100% of remote and mining power project specialists Pacific Energy.