Revealed: The true scale of Australia’s renewable energy land push

The Albanese government is fast-tracking vast wind and solar projects as new data reveals the massive cost of the energy transformation, while coalition says nuclear remains the key.

The federal government is ramping up the speed of its approval of wind and solar energy production projects as a new study reveals the cost and land footprint of Australia’s $1.3 trillion renewable energy push.

It comes as the coalition is busy ramping up warnings that renewables will have “shocking” impacts on agricultural land, nature and regional communities, with Nationals leader David Littleproud saying the broader Australia public “remains open to nuclear as power prices rise”.

In the past few days the government approved two mammoth energy projects – a $2b wind farm near Deniliquin and a 196,000-panel solar farm near Forbes in NSW – with Environment Minister Murray Watt lauding his government’s rapid approval – the latter project in 19 days – of the developments.

It comes as the coalition, fronted by Mr Littleproud and coalition energy spokesman, Liberal MP Dan Tehan – revive their push for nuclear.

As far as Mr Littleproud is concerned, nuclear will remain a key to the coalition’s energy policy as it was one of the four key areas of demand that allowed the two parties to rejoin after they temporarily broke up in May, he said.

Leader of The Nationals David Littleproud at the Brisbane Airport. Picture: John Gass

The Pottinger Wind Farm, located between Hay and Deniliquin, is proposed to have 247 wind turbines across 1069ha, which will generate enough energy to power around 590,000 homes, the government has said. It is a joint venture between AGL and Someva renewables.

The solar farm, plus battery storages, will power up to 60,000 homes at peak for four hours the government said.

The approval for the solar farm was given in just 19 days, with Minister Watt saying that was an example of how proponents can get plans ticked off quickly.

“By choosing to build this facility on disturbed agricultural land with little native vegetation, the proponents set themselves up for success,” Mr Watt said.

It comes as a map outlining the scale and size of every renewable energy project site in Australia was released by Rainforest Reserves Australia this week.

Mr Littleproud says the map – drawn up by RRA which was an independent organisation with “nothing to do” with the coalition – shows the extensive impact renewables were expected to have and why nuclear was needed.

“Only five per cent of our landscape is arable, we need to talk about food security,” Mr Littleproud said.

He said the Australian community would need to “pay back the $1.3 trillion” cost of the projects, as well as the added imposts on communities impacted by developments.

This study’s calculation takes the cost of renewables to $1.3 trillion, excluding transmission, with the total number of wind towers alone predicted to grow from the current 4552 to a proposed 25,869.

While the current number of solar panels was 82,025,000 nationwide, this was projected to grow to 584,000,000.

And while these solar projects currently covered a surface area of 27,176ha this was forecast to increase to 443,755ha.

Meanwhile, Mr Tehan, who has just completed a US study tour on nuclear energy, said he “witnessed the astonishing momentum of research reshaping the global energy landscape” which reinforced his belief Australia “cannot ignore nuclear”.

“Australia sits on approximately 30 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves, the largest known deposits on earth,” Mr Tehan said.

“We are literally sitting on a key solution to our energy challenges while steadfastly refusing to use it.”