Organised community opposition may have succeeded in fending off a large solar battery hybrid project planned near the major port city of Gladstone in central Queensland.
Developer Private Energy Partners (PEP) made an eleventh hour decision to pull the Miriam Vale project from the federal environmental process this week. It follows a decision in June last year to do the same with the state planning process. It had originally
The project was once touted as a 484 megawatt solar facility with four hours of storage, but the company said last year major changes to scale of the project, and new state planning rules, meant it had to restart the development application. It said then that the scale of the changes might require a new federal application as well.
“Due to several factors, including the significant changes made to the layout and the imminent upcoming change to the planning assessment regime in Queensland for solar farms, the current application would need to revert to the beginning of the application process,” PEP said when it withdrew its planning application.
“We are liaising with the Commonwealth… as the proposed changes… may warrant a new determination due to the reduced development footprint and corresponding reduced impacts.”
By June last year, the solar project had already been drastically reduced from 484 MW to 150 MW on the back of community consultation, but still included a 500 MW, four hour battery.
The new plans were for a project that removed arrays from the west, south-west and north parts of the site, added big setbacks to the south and east to “preserve the rural and landscape character”, new setbacks from waterways, and a new bushfire management plan.
PEP says on the Miriam Vale solar website that it is “finalising updated planning and design, and assessing resubmission via the appropriate approval authority”.
The developer did not return requests for comment about whether this plan is still current however, given the EPBC news.
It had hoped to start construction later this year, and have an operational solar-battery in 2028.
Solar headwinds in Queensland
During the course of 2025, the Crisafulli government changed laws so wind, solar and battery projects all needed to present binding agreements with local governments setting out the social impacts and community benefits of proposed projects, before they can apply for development applications with the state.
The changes received a mixed reception, with green groups welcoming the promise of better community consultation and regional community benefit sharing, but questioning the motivation behind it.
“This could potentially be a wolf in sheep’s clothing if the government uses this process to halt renewable projects based on ideology over evidence,” said Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) director Dave Copeman in a statement at the time.
But the Miriam Vale project, which is inside the electorate of vehemently anti-renewable energy federal MP Colin Boyce, was already facing significant community headwinds.
A petition lodged with the state government after the development application was pulled to both reject it and require an independent risk assessment to make the solar-battery proposal safe for the town.
The 1,472 petitioners claimed the planning application lodged in 2024 didn’t “consider the environment” or “assess a suitable safe distance from the Miriam Vale township”, among other complaints.
Planning minister Jarrod Bleijie noted that the solar project was out of the planning system by then, but said the battery would still need to comply with the new rules.
“These changes reflect the Crisafulli Governments’ commitment to ensuring that large scale battery storage projects empowering host communities through a rigorous planning assessment, including consideration of community sentiment,” he wrote in December to the petitioners.
While the opponents of the Miriam Vale solar-battery project may be raising a glass to their success now, there are other projects in the area that are also current.
Spanish developer Global Power Generation is eyeing a 400 MW solar project and 400 MW battery of unknown duration for a spot right next to the Miriam Vale proposal.
Sunshine Hydro wants to build a 100 MW, 12 hour battery to the south along with a small solar project and a green fuels centre, and it’s also just started the EPBC process for the Djandori Gung-i pumped hydro project in the hills to the west – a 1.4 GW project with up to 8 hours of storage.
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Rachel Williamson
Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.
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