{"id":362543,"date":"2025-07-11T12:11:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T02:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=362543"},"modified":"2025-07-11T12:11:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T02:11:37","slug":"feds-approve-new-solar-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Approve New Solar Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>July 11, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.<\/p>\n<p>Environment Minister Murray Watt said on Tuesday the 100MW Hookey Creek solar farm would produce enough energy to power 40,000 homes.<\/p>\n<p>The project,\u00a0 proposed for beside the existing Woolooga Solar Farm, would also include a 200MW battery energy storage system with up to eight hours of storage capacity.<\/p>\n<p>It is about 1km from the Woolooga sub-station.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Although the project has passed its Federal approval, the developers will still have to lodge a Development Application with Gympie Regional Council.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Minister Watt said the Federal approval process took just 17 days because 267ha site was &#8220;designed so its environmental impacts were minimised&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be located on predominantly cleared land, so there\u2019s an option for agricultural use on the site, including sheep grazing through the solar array, demonstrating once again that there\u2019s ways for renewables and agriculture to work together,&#8221; Minister Watt said.<\/p>\n<p>The project is being developed by Zen Energy Future Pty Ltd on behalf of Zebre Pty Ltd (a consortium between Australian-owned Zen Energy and Taiwan-based renewable energy company HDRE).<\/p>\n<p>Minister Watt said the project would support &#8220;up to 264 direct jobs during construction with several ongoing positions&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":239945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,3],"tags":[207],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Feds Approve New Solar Farm - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Feds Approve New Solar Farm - southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-11T02:11:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/20190718solarfarm.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/\",\"name\":\"Feds Approve New Solar Farm - southburnett.com.au\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-11T02:11:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-11T02:11:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae\"},\"description\":\"The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/\",\"name\":\"southburnett.com.au\",\"description\":\"Kingaroy and South Burnett News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae\",\"name\":\"Anne Miller\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/author\/anne-miller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Feds Approve New Solar Farm - southburnett.com.au","description":"The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Feds Approve New Solar Farm - southburnett.com.au","og_description":"The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.","og_url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/","og_site_name":"southburnett.com.au","article_published_time":"2025-07-11T02:11:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":620,"height":385,"url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/20190718solarfarm.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Anne Miller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Anne Miller","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/","url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/","name":"Feds Approve New Solar Farm - southburnett.com.au","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-07-11T02:11:37+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-11T02:11:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae"},"description":"The Federal Government has given the green light to a new solar farm along the Wide Bay Highway at Lower Wonga.","inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/07\/11\/feds-approve-new-solar-farm\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website","url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/","name":"southburnett.com.au","description":"Kingaroy and South Burnett News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae","name":"Anne Miller","url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/author\/anne-miller\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362545,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362543\/revisions\/362545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}