Spanish renewables developer Acciona Energía has completed the construction of a 308MW solar PV power plant near the coastal city of Gladstone in Queensland, Australia.
The Aldoga Solar Farm was completed seven months ahead of schedule, and Acciona will now focus on completing the commissioning phase. It will be connected to the National Electricity Market (NEM), which covers Australia’s southern and eastern coasts and Tasmania.
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Construction on the project started in late 2023. The commissioning phase kicked off with the Aldoga PV plant exporting its first 850kW of renewable electricity to the NEM and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The plant features 820,000 solar PV modules.
As previously reported by PV Tech, the Spanish developer closed an AU$453 million (US$287 million) loan facility for the power plant in March 2025. A 15-year power purchase agreement has been inked with state-owned energy company Stanwell Corporation for 100% of the power plant’s output.
Brett Wickham, managing director of Acciona Energía, praised the early delivery of the solar PV plant and highlighted a partnership with solar equipment provider Nextracker, utilising domestically produced steel tubing from the Orrcon Steel facility in Brisbane for the site.
“We’re incredibly proud to be one of the foundation customers for Nextracker and Orrcon as they work to establish a long-term local steel and manufacturing supply chain for solar farms,” Wickham said.
Alongside using domestically made steel for the site, Acciona has also committed to a community fund. Acciona will invest AU$120,000 (US$76,000) annually in a community benefit fund that will support local programmes and organisations.
Acciona to help deliver Australia’s first REZ
Acciona is one of the companies included in a consortium that will deliver the Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) transmission project in New South Wales. The consortium, called ACEREZ, also includes COBRA and Endeavour Energy.
Under the agreement, ACEREZ will be responsible for designing, building and financing the Central-West Orana REZ transmission project and operating and maintaining it for the next 35 years.
The REZ is one of Australia’s first to begin construction. By 2028, it will deliver at least 4.5GW of new network capacity. It will also help connect 7.7GW of wind and solar PV generation projects to the grid, an increase from the initially proposed 6GW.
Queensland’s solar PV power plants performed strongly in 2024, with four of the five best-performing utility-scale PV plants, in terms of AC capacity factor, being based in the state.
This was according to research entity Rystad Energy, with the top three including X-Elio’s 200MW Blue Grass plant and Greek industrial conglomerate Mytilineos’ 110MW Moura plant.
