Telstra, Macquarie Consider Building New Solar and Wind Farms

Telstra, which reportedly consumes approximately 1 percent of Australia’s electricity, presently has generators and battery storage of approximately 1,000-megawatt hours utilised to guarantee its towers and other various facilities can keep their power on.
As Renew Economy reports, the Head of Strategy at Telstra Energy James Gerraty stated that Telstra’s solar farms provide long term protection for the company on energy prices. He also revealed during the Disruption and Energy Industry conference in Sydney that Telstra is adopting the same approach to handling long term risk on energy as it had on interest rates and other policies.
Earlier this year, Gerraty said that the Emerald solar farm was just the beginning of the company’s dive into large scale renewable energy, but would “let the dust settle” on that investment. Now, Telstra is ready to add other projects including the wind and solar farm projects in New South Wales and Victoria. However, there were no further details given about the potential projects.
On the other hand, the Macquarie Group is considering projects both in the very early phases of location acquisition and the final stage of developments.
Macquarie is known as one of the biggest investors in renewable initiatives and projects through its numerous investment partners around the globe. The company is believed to have established a new team – most were from Australian utilities – which will specialise on solar and wind projects investments.
It is also notable that Australian utilities are now considering large scale renewables. Sun Metals and Nectar Farms are committing to large scale wind and solar projects while Aldi, Woolworths, and IKEA invest on rooftop solar.
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