News

The federal DCCEEW’s approval this week of the Tarong West Wind Farm in the South Burnett region will be of particular interest to the Queensland state government.

Original developer RES Australia received state-level planning approvals for the 436.5 MW Tarong West Wind Farm in August 2024. Federal approval under the EPBC Act was first sought in late 2023.

State-owned utility Stanwell Corp acquired Tarong West in September 2024 when the previous Labor government was in power.

The announcement headline at the time was, “Stanwell signs historic deal to acquire Australia’s largest publicly owned wind farm”.

However, as has been well documented, since defeating Labor in the last state election the Queensland LNP Government has gone hard-line on renewable energy projects through new planning laws, at times applied retrospectively including refusing projects that have already received state approval such as the Moonlight Range Wind Farm.

Tarong West is bound to have attracted close scrutiny from the current state government.

Three other wind farm projects that were caught up in the state government’s Planning (Wind Farms) Amendment Regulation 2025 - Bungaban, Wongalee and Theodore - were consequently approved by the state planning authority but are waiting final EPBC Act approvals from the federal DCCEEW.

Tarong West Wind Farm will feature 97 Vestas 4.5 MW wind turbines and is expected to bring around 200 construction jobs and hundreds more indirect jobs as well as 15 operational jobs to the South Burnett region.

A Final Investment Decision is expected any time, with construction anticipated to begin soon after and commercial operations targeted for 2027-2028.