German renewable energy developer ib vogt has announced a new 120MW solar-plus-storage project in the New England Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) in New South Wales, Australia.
The project will be developed near Deepwater, to the north of the state capital, Sydney. Construction is expected to begin in July 2026. It will include a co-located 120MW/480MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
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The developer has been active in Australia since 2016 and has an international presence in the solar market. One of these markets is Greece, where ib vogt sold a 780MW solar PV and energy storage portfolio to Faria Renewables.
The company has developed and sold around 450MW of renewable energy and storage projects in Australia. One such project includes the 90MW Sebastopol solar project 350km southwest of Sydney.
The project is also set to incorporate a form of agrivoltaics to maintain the heavy farming presence in the region. In a post on LinkedIn, the developer said it had designed the solar PV plant to “support agrivoltaics, allowing sheep to graze among the solar arrays”.
“We’re proud to contribute to Deepwater’s community and Australia’s renewable energy goals. By harmonising clean energy initiatives with traditional farming, we’re paving the way for a sustainable and prosperous future,” the announcement on LinkedIn read.
The New England Renewable Energy Zone
As previously noted, the project will be situated within the New England REZ being developed in the northern part of the state. This REZ aims to deliver 8GW of additional network capacity, supporting renewable energy generation technologies such as solar PV and energy storage.
EnergyCo said the New England REZ is expected to attract more than AUS$24 billion (US$15.5 billion) in private investment by 2034, supporting over 6,000 construction jobs and 2,000 ongoing operational jobs.
REZs are each deemed critical infrastructure projects. They combine transmission infrastructure with large-scale energy generation, such as solar PV and wind, alongside energy storage capabilities. EnergyCo describes them as the “modern-day equivalent of power stations.”
Australia’s various REZs will be critical for its energy transition, mainly as it looks to wean itself off fossil fuels, particularly with the withdrawal of its coal-fired power plants.
Several large-scale renewable energy generation and energy storage projects have been proposed for the New England REZ, and developer Acen Australia is pursuing several of them.
The largest of these is the 320MW Deeargee solar-plus-storage site. The site was also submitted to the EPBC Act in late January 2025.
Acen noted that the Deeargee PV plant will be located around 5km south of its existing and operational 521MWdc stage, one of its New England solar plants. The second stage will increase this generation capacity to 936MWdc.
Metlen Energy and Metals submits 90MW solar PV plant to EPBC Act
In other news, our sister site Energy-Storage.news reported yesterday (6 March) that Greek developer Metlen Energy and Metals, formerly known as Mytilineos, has submitted a 90MW solar PV plant located 16.7km southwest of Muswellbrook in the New South Wales Upper Hunter region to the federal government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
The EPBC queue, administered by the Australian government, aims to protect nationally threatened species and ecological communities under the Act. This must be accepted before permission to develop a project is granted.
The developer, which also submitted plans for a 4.8GWh 2-hour duration BESS, confirmed that the Upper Hunter South Solar Farm forms part of the wider Denman Renewable Energy Hub along with the BESS.
