The co-founder of New Zealand's largest solar farm development portfolio says the Fast Track Approvals Bill will be key to accelerating the consenting processes for major energy projects.
Far North Solar Farm, which began in 2019, manages a portfolio of 11 solar farm developments across the North and South Islands, valued at approximately $2 billion. The company is also supported by Aquila Group, a global specialist climate investment fund with assets totaling €14 billion.
Richard Homewood is co-founder and director at Far North Solar Farm and wants all of the firm’s projects to have construction consent approval by the end of the year.
“For three quarters of our portfolio, we are going through the normal pathway because they’re medium sized projects and it's easier, I suppose. Nothing changes about our projects whether we're doing fast track or not fast track,” he told interest.co.nz.
“It's exactly the same in terms of the standards and what we do. I think if the Fast Track [Approvals Bill] is not brought into place, then we might get to 60% of that goal. So it has a material impact.”
The business is working towards having its entire portfolio completed by 2028. If it gets the consenting approval it needs, Far North Solar Farm plans to have three quarters of its portfolio in construction before the end of 2025.
Once all the solar farms are fully operational, Homewood says the portfolio will be generating 1.5 gigawatts of solar power per year – the equivalent to about 15% of New Zealand’s peak energy demand today.
Homewood was at a Financial Council Services event on Wednesday where Climate Change Minister Simon Watts gave a keynote on the Government’s strategies to combat climate change. Investing in energy is high up on his list.
New Zealand currently produces around eight gigawatts of electricity energy from geothermal power per year and the Government wants to push that up to 16 gigawatts in the next 25 years.
Watts described it as a “pretty significant” commitment.
“But we believe it is possible and that will put us in a competitive advantage over many other countries because of the abundance of energy. Energy powers our economy, and that will give us options.”
The consenting processes for these big energy projects will be much quicker under the Government’s controversial Fast Track Approvals Bill. Introduced as part of the Government's 100-day plan, the Bill gives the Ministers of Infrastructure, Regional Development, and Transport the power to fast-track projects by referring them to an expert panel.
This panel then has up to six months to review and apply conditions, after which the projects return to the ministers – who will then further consider it and have final approval.
Watts said on Wednesday that the Bill took into account the challenges of “how long it takes to get stuff done in this country”.
“We really need to double down and accelerate the speed at which we're putting in renewables into New Zealand to enable [us] to support our economy. And obviously those renewable energy aspects will also lead through to reducing high emission fuels.”
Homewood said after Watts’ speech that he was pleased with what the Minister had to say and the Government had given some “good signals”.
“There's so many stages to the life cycle of these projects, and there's a big focus on consenting, but it's not just consenting. You've also got to build the grid infrastructure. You've got to bring the capital in,” he said.
“There's so many stages, but unless you get certainty around the consenting aspect, then everything else is delayed and there’ll be lots of projects that get consented that will never get built.”
Watts said private capital and investment would play a “critical role” in the way in which the Government was going to achieve its climate targets.
Homewood told interest.co.nz that if the Government wants to double its renewable energy capacity, the scale of investment required will be in the tens of billions.
“It's absolutely enormous. And so we simply cannot get there without the involvement of international capital,” he said. “There's a lot to be learned from the international market in this space because renewables in New Zealand is so new.”
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.