‘Dodgiest deal’: Getaway star Catriona Rowntree fumes over renewables project next door

A TV star has slammed the Victorian government over “secretive” plans to build a massive renewable energy battery project next to her farm.

Catriona Rowntree has slammed the Victorian government over “secretive” plans to build a massive renewable energy battery project next to her farm southwest of Melbourne.

The Getaway presenter, 53, is furious about the proposal to build batteries and solar panels on 770 hectares of land in Little River at the base of the You Yangs Regional Park, just outside Geelong, saying locals were blindsided by the plans and fear it poses a fire risk.

“You are about to learn what many of us across the state of Victoria are being blindsided with — that is in an attempt to go green, we are losing our green,” she told followers on Instagram ahead of an appearance on the ABC.

Catriona Rowntree on her farm near Geelong. Picture: Instagram

Rowntree later told the broadcaster the state government was trying to “sneak through” the proposal “and the council did not know”.

“I’m feeling like the canary in the coal mine,” she told ABC Melbourne radio host Raf Epstein. “If you don’t know something’s happening, how can you object? That’s what happened to us.”

ACEnergy acquired the land in 2023 to build the Little River Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), with the development application currently being considered by Victorian Department of Transport and Planning.

The 350MW/700MWh lithium battery farm would be one of the state’s largest if it goes ahead and “support Victoria’s clean energy transition”.

ACEnergy is planning to build a battery energy storage system next door. Picture: Supplied

“By providing a reliable and flexible storage solution, it will help balance supply and demand, integrating more renewable energy into the grid and reducing reliance on fossil fuels,” ACEnergy states on its website.

Rowntree, a long-time presenter on the Channel 9 travel program, spoke at Tuesday night’s Geelong Council meeting to voice her concerns about the Sandy Creek Road project, saying she had only found out through press reports days earlier.

“It is currently on prime agricultural land and historically, this property in a fire corridor,” she said, the Geelong Advertiser reported.

She noted fatal bushfires had ripped through the area in 1969 and suggested other sites in the area may be more suitable. “As you know, this is a high wind area, and opposite the You Yangs Park 500m away,” she said.

Rowntree says locals have been caught unaware. Picture: Brad Fleet

At the meeting, Geelong Mayor Trent Sullivan agreed that the community had been caught “unaware”.

“Whether it’s a battery [or a] a waste-to-energy incinerator, things that have been tried to, I dare say, be snuck through by the state government, the community must be made aware of it,” he said.

A decision on the project is expected by the end of the year and construction would begin in 2025.

Cr Sullivan said on Thursday the council had written to the state government to request and extension of the community consultation period, which ends on September 7, by three weeks.

Geelong Mayor Trent Sullivan. Picture: Supplied

The Victorian government confirmed to the Geelong Advertiser on Saturday that the department would look at the possibility, although a decision would not be made until this week.

Rowntree told the newspaper the proposal was “dividing communities”.

“Normally this would never be approved, if it was allowed to go through the normal process of public scrutiny,” she said.

“At the moment it feels like the only people winning are the developers.”

Rowntree described it as the “dodgiest deal ever” and said she felt like her community was “always fighting” something.

“We’ve had the detention centre, the freight terminal, the incinerator, it’s just relentless,” she said.

She encouraged locals to make submissions before the consultation period ends.

ACEnergy has been contacted for comment.