The company owns Sun Metals which has a refinery in Townsville and generates power for it with a 125 Mw solar farm that cost $200 million.

Spanish company Acciona said it reached an agreement to jointly develop the 923 Mw MacIntyre wind farm in Queensland under a deal with Ark Energy, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc Co.

Acciona would also build the 103Mw Karara wind farm, owned by the State Government’s renewable energy generator CleanCo. The wind farms are adjacent to each other. Together, MacIntyre and Karara complex will generate clean electricity to supply nearly 700,000 homes and avoid the emission of around 3 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

Acciona said the two projects were investments of about $2 billion and would be key to Queensland’s goal of achieving a 50 per cent share of renewable energy in its electricity consumption by 2030.

Construction of the wind farm complex is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year.

Under the deal with Korea Zinc’s Ark Energy, Acciona would remain responsible for managing the project through its development, construction, operations and maintenance stages.

The McIntyre wind farm already has a long-term power purchase agreement with CleanCo and would also power the Sun Metals refinery and help it meet its target of being completely renewable by 2040

The two projects would generate up to 400 jobs during throughout their useful lives and provide an important economic boost to the local community, with local investment exceeding $500 million.

The wind farm complex will start operating in stages to ensure connection to the grid with full technical guarantees for the state electricity system. The complex will be fully operational by 2024.