Ballarat anchors Western Victoria Renewable Energy Zone as capacity grows

The Western Victoria Renewable Energy Zone — of which Ballarat is the administrative centre and primary service hub — has reached 4,500 megawatts of committed renewable energy capacity across its wind and solar projects, making it the largest concentration of renewable energy generation in regional Victoria and one of the most significant clean energy zones in the country.

The federal government has contributed $280 million to the transmission upgrades that allow the zone's renewable energy to flow reliably to the high-consumption centres of Melbourne and the interconnection points that link Victoria to South Australia and New South Wales. The transmission investment has been the critical enabler of the renewable investment, as the existing grid infrastructure had insufficient capacity to accept the generation output from the projects that were seeking to connect to the zone.

The zone's operating wind and solar projects collectively employ approximately 850 people in operations, maintenance, and administration roles, with the Ballarat-based contractors and service businesses that service the wind farms across the golden plains generating significant commercial activity in the city. The service industry around the wind farms has been one of the more economically significant developments in the Ballarat business community in the past decade.

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the Western Victoria REZ was "a model for how renewable energy zones can deliver clean energy and regional economic development simultaneously," noting that the combination of generation capacity, transmission investment, and the local service industry that had grown around the zone had created a durable economic dividend for the Ballarat region that would compound as the zone's capacity continued to grow.

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