Catriona Rowntree has heaped criticism on ‘secretive’ plans to build a renewable battery farm next to her rural farmhouse in Victoria.
The Getaway star, 53, has called on Geelong Council to back her call to block the large-scale project from being erected next door to her home, which she claims poses a safety risk.
Proposals from AC Energy to build a 350MW/700MWh lithium battery farm in Little River, 44km southwest of Melbourne, are currently in front of the State Government.
If the project goes ahead, it would become one of the state’s largest battery energy storage systems (BESS), designed to manage electrical energy using lithium-ion batteries.
But Catriona has now slammed the plans and claimed she was ‘blindsided’ by the proposals, only finding out about them in a report in her local newspaper.
She took to Instagram to share an impassioned video opposing the development, which she claimed poses a safety risk because the area of land is on a fire corridor.
The TV presenter also noted that the remote location is protected by a significant landscape overlay, which aim to preserve and enhance significant areas.
‘Hello, I just wanted to let you know that just after 5pm, if you tune into ABC Stateside in Victoria, you are about to learn what many of us across the state of Victoria are being blindsided with,’ she shared.
Catriona Rowntree has heaped criticism on ‘secretive’ plans to build a renewable battery farm next to her rural farmhouse in Victoria
‘That is in an attempt to go green, we are losing our green!’
Later featuring on ABC, Catriona went on to accuse the State Government of trying to ‘sneak through’ the proposals, claiming Geelong Council was unaware of them.
‘We’re in a high fire zone and the government has actually placed a significant landscape overlay on this very farm,’ she shared.
‘This is the exact same farm where the historic 1969 fires broke out, we get fires in this area all of the time. Yesterday we had 100 kilometres winds sweeping through this area.
‘The State Government is trying to sneak this through and the council did not know,’ she added.
A fatal bushfire ripped through Little River and many other areas on the outskirts of the You Yangs Regional Park in 1969, destroying properties and killing many locals.
Catriona has suggested another area would be more appropriate to house the battery farm because of the risk of high winds in the agricultural area.
She has asked for the consultation period to be extended as the deadline is approaching in a matter of days on September 7, with a decision expected by the end of the year.
The Getaway star, 53, has called on the council to back her call to block the large-scale project from being erected next door to her home (pictured), which she said she was ‘blindsided’ by
Catriona claimed the development poses a safety risk because the land is on a fire corridor while it is also protected by a significant landscape overlay to preserve significant areas
Geelong mayor Trent Sullivan agreed that the local community had been caught completely ‘unaware’ by the proposals as he vowed to take it up with the State.
‘The community has been caught unaware,’ Mr Sullivan said in a recent meeting, according to the Geelong Advertiser.
‘Whether it’s a battery (or a) a waste-to-energy incinerator, things that have been tried to, I dare say, be snuck through by the state government, the community must be made aware of it. We will follow up on that one.’
Catriona relocated from Sydney to Victoria to be with her farmer husband James and has since restored his former family home, a six-bedroom Victorian farmhouse, to its former glory.
The sheep and grain property where Catriona, James and their children are based has been used over the years for movies including Ned Kelly and The Dressmaker.
If the plans next door to her sprawling property go ahead and become operational, the BESS would connect directly with the existing 220kV network infrastructure.
According to ACEnergy, it would enable Victoria to become more sustainable ‘balancing supply and demand, integrating more renewable energy into the grid and reducing reliance on fossil fuels’.
Unlike many other forms of energy storage, a BESS provides much more flexibility as it releases energy on demand.
The unit could also help to manage the impacts of power fluctuations and outages, while existing transmission lines would be used to minimise construction impacts.
The land for the Little River BESS was secured in 2023, with the application currently under assessment by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning.
If approved, ACEnergy expects construction to begin in the second quarter of 2025, with the BESS scheduled to be energised by late 2026.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Victorian government and ACEnergy for comment.
Catriona relocated from Sydney to Victoria to be with her farmer husband James and has since restored his former family home, a six-bedroom Victorian sheep farmhouse, to its former glory
The new proposal comes as the State Government approved the first renewable energy project under the Allan Labor Government’s new streamlined process.
Earlier this year, renewable energy projects became eligible to go through the development facilitation program to ensure significant proposals can get off the ground faster.
And on Thursday, Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny approved the first project under the new system, with it expected to be fully processed in just nine weeks.
Amid a big push in renewable energy, a $250million BESS has been approved for Joel Joel in the Northern Grampians, which lies 23km east of Stawell in the Wimmera region of Victoria.
According to a press release, ‘projects like this are playing a key role in achieving Victoria’s energy storage targets of at least 2.6 gigawatts of energy storage capacity by 2030 and at least 6.3 gigawatts by 2035’.
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