An energy company is proposing what would be the biggest solar power plant in New South Wales, in an effort to help Australia meet its renewable energy target.
Photon Energy wants to build a 316-megawatt project at Gunning, near Goulburn on the state's southern tablelands.
It has lodged its initial plans with the NSW Department of Planning, which would involve building hundreds of thousands of solar panels on 590 hectares of land.
The largest operating project in the Southern Hemisphere, the Nyngan Solar Plant in the state's west, is 104 megawatts and the Sunraysia Solar Farm, which was approved near Balranald last month, will be 200 megawatts.
Photon Energy managing director Michael Gartner said the $380 million Gunning project would be significantly bigger than any other project in NSW.
"The reason we've gone to that scale is because we see the need to build very large-scale solar generation systems to supplement the energy requirements of the power grid, as we've moved forward to the energy transformation away from coal to renewable energy," he said.
Mr Gartner said the Gunning district's location between Canberra and Sydney made it ideal for connecting to the electricity grid.
"What we don't want to do is build solar power plants in the middle of nowhere where you don't have grid connectivity," he said.
"We have been looking for sites that are on the backbone of the east coast power network, and this site proved to be very good from that perspective."
Region's growing role in renewable energy generation
Upper Lachlan Shire mayor Brian McCormack said the region was already home to many renewable energy projects, and the benefits were wide-ranging.
"We've already got a [solar plant] at Bannister, so if there's another one over in the Gunning area, I couldn't see too big a problem with it," he said.
"If it's situated in the right area and doesn't annoy the neighbours too much, I think it's certainly good for the power industry.
"We're probably the wind farm capital of Australia. I think we've got 11 wind farms either built, being built or on the books."
If approved, the company hopes to begin construction in early 2019.
