{"id":801294,"date":"2026-07-15T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801294\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T06:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:30:12","slug":"pumped-hydro-and-solar-project-approved-for-gloucester-nsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801294\/","title":{"rendered":"Pumped hydro and solar project approved for Gloucester, NSW"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pumped hydro project with the potential to power up to 120,000 homes has been given the green light in the Upper Hunter.<\/p>\n

The $1.8 billion Stratford pumped hydro and solar project will occupy the site of a coal mining operation that ended in 2024 in the Gloucester Valley.<\/p>\n

Gloucester Coal, a Yancoal subsidiary, has proposed a 300-megawatt pumped hydro station with 12 hours of energy storage and a 320-megawatt solar farm.<\/p>\n

New South Wales Planning Minister Paul Scully announced the project’s approval today, saying it was the first pumped hydro project approved in the state since Snowy 2.0.<\/p>\n

“In addition to having the potential to power 120,000 homes, [it] is forecast to deliver around 13 per cent of the state’s 2034 long-duration storage target,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Long duration and storage is an important part of making sure that we have capacity in our system as demand fluctuates throughout the day.”\"Men<\/p>\n

Paul Scully (left) discusses the plan with state government officials. (ABC Newcastle: Carly Cook)<\/p>\n

Planning documents show the surplus energy generated at the site during the day would be released during peak electricity usage at night.<\/p>\n

Water would be transferred via a tunnel between an upper reservoir, to be built in bushland, and an existing dam to generate power.<\/p>\n

For a community still reeling from the loss of jobs when the mine closed in 2024, the prospect of 350 construction jobs and 10 ongoing positions is significant.<\/p>\n

But planning approval is no guarantee the project will proceed, as its viability is still in doubt.<\/p>\n

In a statement from Yancoal, a spokesperson said the company “will now progress with assessing the commercial viability of the project”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Solar panels will power water pumps to create energy storage in an upper reservoir, according to the proposal. (Supplied: Yancoal Australia)<\/p>\n

“Yancoal is considering preferred ownership, funding and operating models, subject to board approval,” they said.<\/p>\n

During this process, the company would focus on, “advancing mine closure activities at both Stratford and Duralie in line with government regulations and community expectations.”<\/p>\n

The proximity of a mountain range to the mine site and existing infrastructure makes it “an ideal location” for a pumped hydro project, the Yanco statement said.<\/p>\n

Australian National University hydro engineering professor Andrew Blakers said pumped hydro projects of the scale of the Gloucester proposal were important in the nation’s energy mix.<\/p>\n

“What we need is a mix of big systems like Snowy 2.0 or pumped hydro in the Yallourn coal pit and small systems in the 3-to-30 gigawatt-hour range such as this one,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We need a whole range of sizes and that diversity makes things better.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Andrew Blakers says combining solar with pumped hydro delivers long-duration power. (Supplied: Australian National University)<\/p>\n

Dr Blakers said without pumped hydro and wind farms the energy grid would not be able to replace coal-fired power during peak evening demand.<\/p>\n

“The thing about pumped hydro is it uses a very small amount of land, much smaller than an equivalent solar farm [or] wind farm transmission, and even smaller than a battery,” he said.<\/p>\n

“One big advantage of a coal pit is that you halve the amount of land that you need to flood and turning it into a pumped hydro makes a virtue out of a rather poor asset.”\"A<\/p>\n

Dave Layzell supports converting coal mines to renewable power stations. (Supplied: Dave Layzell MP)<\/p>\n

Upper Hunter Nationals MP Dave Layzell said should mining sites be converted for productive purposes such as power generation and that planning should start before mines were decommissioned.<\/p>\n

“There’s a bit of a time lag from the mine shutting to the new project starting and that’s a challenge for local communities,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’re certainly feeling the effects in Gloucester from the shutting of the mine, as businesses are really hurting there.<\/p>\n

“Pumped hydro storage of energy is a massive challenge in our future transition [and] this is a really good project.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pumped hydro project with the potential to power up to 120,000 homes has been given the green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,102741,159118,54837,256080,8146,6831,375837,174538],"class_list":["post-801294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-coal-mine","tag-hydro-power","tag-power-generation","tag-pumped-hydro","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar-power","tag-stratford-pumped-hydro-and-solar","tag-yancoal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}