NBN Co harnesses wind power on road to 100 per cent renewables target

NBN Co’s commitment to 100 per cent renewable electricity purchases from December 2025¹ has taken a step forward with signing of the company’s second Renewable Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) – a six-year PPA involving a wind farm near Warrnambool in south west Victoria.

nbn has contracted to take approximately 90 Gigawatt hours (GWh) per year from the Macarthur Wind Farm which is operated by AGL and consists of 140 wind turbines with a capacity of 420 MW. On average, over the past decade, the wind farm has generated over 910,000 MWh of renewable energy annually, enough to power the equivalent of 171,000 Australian homes.

Today’s PPA announcement is the latest in a series of renewable PPAs the company intends to make as part of its commitment to purchase renewable electricity.

It follows the official switch-on of the Wyalong Solar Farm in the Riverina area of New South Wales in September 2023, which was constructed following nbn’s first PPA – a 10-year agreement where the company is contracted to take approximately 90 GWh per annum, or around 62 per cent of the expected power generated by the solar farm.

The company’s target of 100 per cent renewable electricity purchases from December 2025² is underpinned by membership of the RE100, a global renewable electricity initiative comprising approximately 400 of the world’s largest businesses. nbn was the first Australian telecommunications company and first Australian Government Business Enterprise to join RE100.

In June 2023, nbn committed to long-term greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction targets and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, or sooner, via the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).³

This follows nbn setting near-term science-based emissions reduction targets, which have now been validated by the SBTi, and are as follows:

• Reducing absolute Scope 1 & 2 GHG emissions by 95 per cent by FY2030 compared to FY2021 as the base year. Scope 1 and 2 are the emissions generated from the consumption of fuel in nbn’s fleet and back-up diesel generators, and the purchase of electricity from the grid to power the nbn^® network.
• Reducing Scope 3 GHG emissions from use of sold products by 60 per cent per device by FY2030 compared to FY2021 as the base year.
• Committing that 80 per cent of suppliers by spend, covering purchased goods and services, capital goods and downstream transportation and distribution, will have science-based targets by FY2027.

The company is on track to enable up to 10 million premises, or around 90 per cent of premises on the Fixed Line network, to access the nbn^® Home Ultrafast wholesale speed tier, which is capable of achieving peak wholesale download speeds of 500 Mbps to close to 1 Gbps⁴, by the end of 2025.

Upgrading from Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) and Fibre to the Node (FTTN) to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) will help deliver improved customer experience with the higher speed tiers available supporting online education, telehealth services, the ability to work from home, gaming and streaming, connecting more smart devices and strengthening social inclusion.

Through its network investment plan nbn aims to help unlock the social and economic benefits of broadband for the nation, and importantly this will include in rural and regional Australia.

In partnership with the Government, nbn is also investing a further $750 million in the nbn^® Fixed Wireless network² to deliver faster speeds for regional Australia, benefitting customers in thousands of homes and businesses.

nbn^® Fixed Wireless infrastructure sites will have their coverage enhanced and footprint coverage expanded by up to 50 per cent, enabling approximately 120,000 former satellite-only premises to access nbn^® Fixed Wireless services for the first time.

The company’s 100 per cent renewables commitment covers both current and future network infrastructure.

Stephen Rue, Chief Executive Officer at NBN Co, said:

“This latest PPA is an important step for nbn in meeting our target of 100 per cent renewable electricity purchases from December 2025.

“This is an important milestone for nbn and we know it’s also important for our customers too.

“The nbn^® network is a significant consumer of electricity, so we will continue to explore the use of renewable energy sources and innovative solutions to drive down our emissions and operating costs.”

Notes to editors

1. https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-co-announces-100-percentrenewable-
   electricity-target-and-towards-zero-carbon-ambition
2. NBN-Co-Corporate-Plan-2023.pdf (nbnco.com.au)
3. https://sciencebasedtargets.org/companies-taking-action
4. Regardless of the retail service you purchase, the actual wholesale speeds delivered by nbn’s highest wholesale speed tiers of 500 to close to 1000 Mbps will be less than 1Gbps due to equipment and network limitations and the peak information rate may fall anywhere in this range. In addition, the HFC Home Ultrafast bandwidth profile downstream service provided to retail providers is a ranged profile with a maximum sustained information rate of 750Mbps. Reference to speeds are not end user speeds; they are wholesale layer 2 peak information rate bandwidth provided to retail providers. A customer’s experience, including the speeds actually achieved over the nbn^® network, depends on some factors outside nbn’s control (like equipment quality, software, and how the customer’s retail service provider designs its network) and the nbn^® technology used for the customer’s connection.