New England Solar Farm

The New England Solar Farm will be constructed east of Uralla, NSW. Once operational, the project will generate enough clean renewable electricity to power more than 250,0000 homes.

UPC/AC Renewables | Uralla, New South Wales

Project overview
The New England Solar Farm, a 720 MW grid-connected solar farm, will be constructed on a site approximately 6 km east of the township of Uralla in the New England region of NSW. The project will employ up to 700 people during construction and help meet NSW and Commonwealth government renewable energy targets. The project will cover approximately 2,000 hectares across two areas of land currently used for grazing. It will utilise ground-mounted solar photovoltaic or PV panels, similar to those used on rooftops around Australia. A battery energy storage system is also proposed and will provide up to 200 MW two-hour energy storage capacity. The project was granted approval by the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC) in March 2020 after more than two years of detailed planning, assessment, and community engagement.
Our involvement
EMM prepared the constraints analysis, preliminary environmental assessment, environmental impact statement (EIS), amendment report and response to submissions report for the project. During preparation of the EIS, the EMM team and UPC worked together to refine the development footprint within the project boundary on the basis of environmental constraints and the outcomes of community consultation with the objective of developing an efficient project that minimises environmental impacts. The refinement process included consideration of potential impacts to biodiversity, Aboriginal cultural and historic heritage sites, soils, watercourses and sensitive receptors that might be potentially impacted by construction noise and visual amenity impacts. In addition to providing technical, planning and approvals support for the project, EMM also assisted UPC with an extensive programme of stakeholder engagement, which included meetings and briefings with close neighbours, the local community, Council and other regulatory stakeholders. As part of this ongoing support role, EMM coordinated the preparation of engagement materials, managed the community information line and attended site visits, drop-in sessions and meetings with key regulators
Technical solutions
  • Aboriginal Heritage
  • Acoustics
  • Bushfire
  • Ecology
  • Historic Heritage
  • Landscape Architecture & Visual Assessment
  • Social Assessment and Performance
  • Soil, Land Resources and Erosion
  • Stakeholder and Community Engagement
  • Spatial Solutions
  • Surface water
  • Transport Engineering and Planning