Broadsound Solar Farm in Clarke Creek to include 500-bed workers camp

Queensland’s next major solar farm capable of powering about 140,000 homes is a step closer to fruition after the green light was given to a 500-bed worker’s camp. LATEST

Queensland’s next mega solar farm — capable of powering about 140,000 homes — is a step closer to fruition after the green light was given to a 500-bed worker’s camp.

Isaac Regional Council has approved Iberdrola’s application for a temporary accommodation camp that will allow it to build the 392MW Broadsound Solar Farm.

Iberdrola’s solar farm and camp will be situated on a 3600ha former cattle breeding and fattening station along Marlborough Sarina Rd in Clarke Creek, a town 223km south of Mackay, 90km southwest of St Lawrence, and 163km northwest of Rockhampton.

Just across the road is Squadron’s Clarke Creek Solar and Windfarm, which boasts being the largest renewable energy precinct in the Southern Hemisphere, and 45km north is the under-construction Lotus Creek Windfarm.

Iberdrola Australia Development has applied to Isaac Regional Council to build a temporary worker's camp in order to supply a workforce for its Broadsound Solar Farm in Clarke Creek between Mackay and Rockhampton. Picture: Isaac Regional Council

Isaac Regional Council documents show the proposed Broadsound camp at 353 Manly Access Rd and 18543 Marlborough-Sarina Rd features more than 170 single-storey modules, gym and recreation equipment, 29 kitchen modules, and 12 laundry and services modules.

Iberdrola, which owns a solar farm in Texas that supplies power to Facebook, stated the Clarke Creek project was necessary as the nearest available workers camps were at Middlemount and Dysart, more than an hour’s drive from the solar farm.

The council through its own investigation concluded the nearest township of Marlborough was unsuitable for a temporary camp, and Middlemount and Rockhampton were too far away.

Councillors approved the camp during the ordinary meeting on Wednesday with the conditions it was dismantled after three years and the grounds returned to a “pre-development state”.

Documents state the solar farm is expected to take just over two years to complete but this was subject to “unforeseen complications and delays”, with buses to transport the majority of the workforce between the camp and the farm.

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