UK's Octopus buys Dulacca wind farm in Australia from RES

Coda Octopus

31/08/2021 09:13

MELBOURNE, Aug 31 (Reuters) - UK renewables investment firm
Octopus Group has bought a 180 megawatt wind farm project in
Queensland, Australia from Britain's RES, the companies said on
Tuesday.
    They did not disclose the sale price for the Dulacca wind
farm. 
    The wind farm's 43 turbines will be supplied by Denmark's
Vestas Wind Systems  VWS.CO , which will also operate the site. 
    Commissioning of the wind farm is due to begin in the first
quarter of 2023, Vestas said.
    RES typically develops renewable energy projects then sells
them to investors, but then manages the assets.
    Queensland's state-owned CleanCo has signed a 126 MW power
purchase agreement with the Dulacca wind farm owners, which
would help meet the state's target to have 50% of its energy
from renewables by 2030, the companies said.
    The Dulacca project is Octopus' fourth renewable asset
acquisition in Australia since entering the market in 2018.
    "It is great for Octopus to continue our long-standing
European relationship with two strong counterparties in RES and
Vestas, who between them bring deep wind farm construction and
grid experience in Australia," Octopus Australia's investment
director, Darren Brown, said in a statement.
    The deal comes at a time when there has been a drop off in
wind and solar farm developments in Australia, after a period of
rapid growth over the past several years.
    Developers have been deterred by delays in hooking up
projects to the grid and curbs on output from new projects due
to insufficient transmission capacity to handle all the power
being added in locations far away from demand centres.
    The federal and state governments are backing new interstate
transmission projects to help ease the congestion and clear the
way for more renewables to be added to the grid.
     

 (Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Susan Fenton)
 ((Sonali.Paul@thomsonreuters.com; +61 407 119 523;))