News

The exhibition period for Terrain Solar’s Maison Dieu Solar Farm, to be located on a site approximately 10km north-west of Singleton within the Hunter-Central Coast REZ, has been opened by the NSW state planning authority.

The project involves the construction, operation and decommissioning of a large-scale solar farm with an integrated Battery Energy Storage System, a high-voltage electricity substation, connection to the national electricity grid through the existing Ausgrid Substation, and associated infrastructure.

After multiple refinements based on community and stakeholder feedback, as well as environmental and social studies, the project was reduced in capacity from an initially planned 150 MW to 60 MW AC from approximately 110,000 solar panels. The BESS will have storage capacity of 40 MW / 80 MWh.

The project area includes parts of five lots, making a total of 203 hectares of land that has historically been used for agricultural production, containing an actual disturbance footprint of around 90 ha.

The estimated total investment value of the project is $127mil, and it’s expected up to 150 full time jobs will be supported during the 18-month construction phase and five full time jobs during the anticipated 30 years of operation.

If all approvals are gained, Maison Dieu Solar Farm will be constructed and operated by RATCH Australia. In a similar arrangement first announced in October 2022, RATCH Australia will build, own, and maintain the Marulan Solar Farm and BESS in NSW which was developed by Terrain Solar until handover last month.

Also in August, AGL Energy entered into a binding agreement to acquire Terrain Solar and BESS developer Firm Power for a total consideration of approximately $250 million.