Billionaire plans big investment in green power

Carmeli Argana

Billionaire Andrew Forrest has pledged to develop 14 gigawatts of new clean power projects in Australia by 2030, offering a boost to the nation’s efforts to accelerate investments in renewable energy.

Forrest’s closely held Squadron Energy aims to add facilities that can power the equivalent of 6 million homes, and will account for about a third of the clean electricity generation required for the nation to meet government targets, according to a statement.

“The time for talk is over, we are investing right now in Australia’s green energy transition,” Forrest said on Thursday in the statement, as he launched construction of the Uungula wind farm in New South Wales state.

Under the plans, Squadron had signed a A$2.75 billion ($2.94b) pact with GE Vernova for the supply of wind turbines and engineering to projects in New South Wales, Squadron said.

Investment in utility-scale solar and wind projects in Australia was about US$1.4b ($2.24b) in the first nine months of 2023, compared with a full-year total in 2022 of US$6.2b, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF. Rising costs of wind and solar projects, the slow expansion of the nation’s grid infrastructure and uncertainty over government policy have all been factors that have hampered projects.

Australia’s government late last year announced plans to stimulate new investment by expanding the Capacity Investment Scheme — a policy to underwrite renewable energy projects — to about 32 gigawatts. The shift comes as the nation, which still relies heavily on coal and gas, aims to lift the use of renewables to 82 per cent of overall power consumption by 2030.

Squadron’s proposal was “going to be a big boost for our plans”, said Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who called for more private sector investment in clean power.

“Government can set the frameworks, the policy, the support for the Capacity Investment Scheme, but the capital’s got to come from the private sector,” Bowen said at the Uungula site.

Forrest’s Squadron has about 1.1 gigawatts of renewable energy projects in operation, making it among Australia’s largest developers. It plans a total of about 20 gigawatts.