The CEFC says it will put up $5 million for the Blind Creek Solar and Battery Project. 

Octopus Australia and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) are working with the founders of the Blind Creek project to develop and deliver a utility scale agri-solar and battery project.

The project site is located on a strong part of the existing energy transmission network near Bungendore, New South Wales, between the major load centres of Sydney and Canberra. 

With a capacity of over 300MWac solar and large scale storage, the project is aiming to make a significant contribution to the NSW energy transition without requiring major transmission works.

The project was founded by local farmers with a multi-generational connection to the site and to the local community, together with a team of renewable energy experts including technical support from Stride Renewables and Axcentium. 

“From the outset our goal was to co-locate renewable energy with regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration while maintaining sheep production,” says founder and landowner Dominic Osborne. 

CEFC executive director Monique Miller says the development at Blind Creek is “a significant opportunity for solar and storage generation between two major load centres and in a state which will see some coal fired generation retiring in the short term, requiring significant new generation to support security and reliability”.

“The CEFC is making a commitment of up to $5 million to the Blind Creek development, continuing our strategy of closely cooperating with landowners and maintaining existing regional farming activities in conjunction with clean energy generation,” Ms Miller says. 

“It’s great to be working with landowners and Octopus to develop this opportunity to construction phase in the coming years.”

Octopus Investments Australia is a subsidiary of the Octopus Group, which is one of the world’s largest investors in clean energy with over $6 billion deployed across more than 300 projects. 

Octopus entered Australia in 2018 and is currently managing over $1 billion of renewable assets domestically.