The Chief Minister of Northern Territory, Eva Lawler, has recently revealed that the government-owned Power and Water Corporation is considering acquiring four privately owned solar farms situated across the Top End. The proposed acquisition aims to finally bring these solar farms online and thus contribute to the region’s energy generation capability in an environmentally sustainable manner.

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The handful of solar farms were built near Katherine and in Darwin’s rural area. However, they have been sitting disconnected from the Top End grid for at least four years. Power and Water has long held concerns about bringing the facilities online, fearing their power generation could be volatile and destabilise the Darwin-Katherine grid. When asked whether the solar farms could be purchased by the NT government, Ms Lawler said: “That’s a possible option.” “ We need to be able to control the energy that comes from those, so it is an option,” she said.

Ms Lawler said the solar farms the government was interested in buying were currently owned by energy company ENI, but she refused to provide an estimated cost. The comments sparked criticism from opposition shadow treasurer Bill Yan, who questioned whether such a purchase would be the best use of taxpayer dollars. “ The more important point is, can we afford to buy these things,” he said. He also criticised the NT government’s renewable energy rollout, saying the construction of these solar farms before infrastructure could handle them was “putting the cart before the horse”.

“Territory Labor led all these contracts to companies to build all these giant solar farms across the Top End,” he said. “ All of a sudden, the territory government found out they couldn’t hook them up. The grid wasn’t stable enough.” The architect of the NT’s “Roadmap to Renewables”, Alan Langworthy, last year criticised the government’s handling of the transition to 50 per cent renewables by 2030, saying “unrealistic” regulation was stymieing the commissioning of solar projects. Ms Lawler’s comments come as a $45 million “big battery” at the Channel Island Power Station, south of Darwin, nears completion.

She said construction of the facility had finished and it would now enter the commissioning phase: Once complete, it will give time for gas generators to kick into action when cloud cover decreases the output of both rooftop solar and large solar farms. The government has now unveiled plans for a second tranche of battery upgrades to the Top End’s “micro-grid”, which involve building a series of smaller batteries at various sites across Darwin and Katherine to further improve resiliency.

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