ACEN Australia's first project, the New England solar farm in New South Wales, has a buyer for a quarter of its first stage. SmartestEnergy will take 100 MW of output for eight years. In a market where the typical disclosed solar contract runs for a decade, the short term is the detail worth reading.
Key takeaways
- ACEN, through its Australian subsidiary, announced on 13 March 2024 an 8-year power purchase agreement with SmartestEnergy covering 25 percent of the output of Stage 1 of the New England solar project in New South Wales, equal to 100 MW of the 400 MW stage.
- Stage 1 of the New England solar project, 400 MW, has been operating since March 2023; the full project is planned at 720 MW with a 200 MW, 2-hour battery, and Stage 2 was due to start construction in 2024.
- New England solar is the inaugural project of ACEN Australia, supplies the National Electricity Market and is expected to power about 300,000 average Australian homes.
- In July 2024 ACEN signed a 10-year PPA with Flow Power for the New England solar project, and on the same day Flow Power signed 10-year agreements with BaptistCare and Asahi Beverages for power from the project.
- SmartestEnergy has signed six Australian solar PPAs recorded in Leap since December 2022, totalling 660.25 MW, and only two disclose a term: 8 years with ACEN for New England and 4 years with Neoen for 220 MW of the Culcairn solar farm.
Why would an operating solar farm sell a quarter of its output for only eight years?
Most likely because the buyer is a retailer, not an end user, and a retailer's contract length follows its customer book. A power purchase agreement, or PPA, is a long-term contract to buy electricity from a specific project at agreed terms. When the buyer is a factory or a mining company, it can sign for 15 or 25 years because its own demand is that stable. When the buyer is an electricity retailer that resells to many businesses, it signs for roughly as long as it can confidently place the power with customers.
SmartestEnergy's stated aim in the deal is to supply Australian businesses with 100 percent renewable electricity. It sits between the generator and those businesses. That makes an 8-year term a commercial choice rather than a weakness: long enough to anchor a retail product, short enough not to lock a reseller into volumes it may not be able to place.
The timing also matters. Stage 1 was already generating when the agreement was signed. A project under construction usually needs long contracts to support its debt. A project that is already running has more freedom to sell in smaller, shorter blocks and keep the rest exposed to the wholesale market. ACEN did not need this contract to build New England. It needed it to sell the output well.
How has ACEN filled the rest of New England's output?
Through a second retailer, on longer terms, with named end users attached. Four months after the SmartestEnergy deal, ACEN signed a 10-year PPA with Flow Power for New England solar. The same day, Flow Power signed 10-year agreements with BaptistCare and Asahi Beverages to supply them with power from the project.
That is a layered structure. ACEN sells to Flow Power. Flow Power resells to named businesses on matching terms. The retailer carries the customer relationships, and the generator gets a counterparty that has already lined up demand. In November 2025 Flow Power added another, a 10-year agreement with the University of Technology Sydney for 13.3 MW from New England solar 1.
Set side by side, the two retailer contracts show the difference a visible customer book makes. The SmartestEnergy agreement names no end users and runs eight years. The Flow Power agreement came with named end users from day one and runs ten.
What does SmartestEnergy's Australian contract book look like?
It is growing steadily in size, and almost none of it discloses a term. Leap records six SmartestEnergy solar PPAs in Australia since December 2022: 53 MW from Metlen's Kingaroy project, 83.25 MW from Octopus Group's Darlington Point solar farm, 93 MW from Enel's Girgarre solar farm, 100 MW from ACEN's New England, 111 MW from Metis Energy's Gunsynd solar farm, and 220 MW from Neoen's 440 MW Culcairn solar farm.
Each contract has been larger than the one before. Only two disclose a duration. The ACEN contract runs eight years. The Neoen contract, for half of Culcairn, runs four. Leap classifies SmartestEnergy as an IPP or utility offtaker, which is consistent with a buyer that aggregates supply for onward sale rather than consuming it.
Enerdatics records 38 solar PPAs announced in Australia between January 2023 and June 2025. Twenty-four disclose a term, and the median of those is 10 years: twelve of the 24 run exactly a decade. Only five run eight years or less, and two of those five have SmartestEnergy as the buyer: the 8-year New England contract and the 4-year Culcairn contract. At the other end sit industrial buyers on 25-year terms, including Rio Tinto's 1,100 MW contract for Upper Calliope and Fortescue's 337.5 MW contract for Bulli Creek. None of the 38 discloses a tariff.
What does the contract signal for Australian solar offtake?
It signals a two-speed market. Large industrial users sign very long contracts for very large volumes, often for projects not yet built. The ranking of Australia's biggest PPAs is dominated by that kind of buyer. Retailers sit at the other end, often buying smaller and shorter blocks from operating plants and reselling to businesses too small to contract with a generator directly.
For international developers new to the country, retailer contracts can be the faster route to revenue. ACEN used two of them to place output from its first Australian project, much as other entrants have used local platforms to get started, as in EDPR's entry into Australia through ITP Development. What remains unknown is the price. With no tariff disclosed on any of the 38 contracts, the market can see who is buying and for how long, but not what the power is worth.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ACEN and SmartestEnergy PPA? It is an 8-year power purchase agreement, announced on 13 March 2024, under which SmartestEnergy buys 25 percent of the output of the 400 MW first stage of ACEN's New England solar project in New South Wales.
How big is the New England solar project? Stage 1 is 400 MW and has operated since March 2023. The full project is planned at 720 MW, with a 200 MW, 2-hour battery energy storage system.
Who else buys power from New England solar? Flow Power signed a 10-year PPA with ACEN in July 2024 and resells the power to businesses including BaptistCare, Asahi Beverages and the University of Technology Sydney.
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