Simec unveils 1GW clean energy portfolio plan for Australia

Renewable energy business Simec Zen Energy has unveiled plans for $1bn worth of clean energy investment in Australia.

Simec is a subsidiary of GFG Alliance – an international umbrella business encompassing mining, metals, engineering, energy and financial services – and has unveiled plans to build a 1GW clean energy portfolio in Whyalla, South Australia.

The overall project will include a 280MW solar PV project, the Cultana solar farm, which will use 780,000 PV panels with an output set to reach 600GWh of energy annually.  The project should produce enough energy to supply 100,000 average households and offset about 492,000 CO2 emissions per year, according to Renewables Now.

As a whole the project is set to create around 350 jobs during its construction and aims to ensure long-term green, cheaper power supply for industrial use, including that of Whyalla steelworks.

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Chairman of the group, industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, stated on a site visit: “Today’s event is symbolic of our desire to develop and invest in new-generation energy assets that will bring down Australia’s electricity prices to competitive levels again, as well as our commitment to local and regional Australia.”

He added, according to The Guardian: “All of these projects will not only improve reliability and greatly reduce the cost of electricity in our own operations, they will also provide competitive sources of power for other industrial and commercial users, while at the same time playing a key role in the market’s transition towards renewables.”