A furious TV personality has slammed a “secret” energy company’s plan to build a giant battery farm next to her home.
Catriona Rowntree is opposing a proposal to build a 350MW/700MWh lithium battery farm on farmland adjacent to her Little River home, located between Geelong and Melbourne at the base of You Yangs Regional Park.
He has joined the united struggle of the community to oppose he The huge ACEnergy The 770-hectare project comes amid fears it will ruin views of the national park and discourage tourists from visiting the area.
The long-time host of Getaway and Country House Hunters Australia is “fighting to protect” her town from the dangerous farm that will ruin views from the park and discourage tourists from visiting the area.
The property next to Rowntree’s is prone to bushfires and has been designated as a sensitive Aboriginal heritage area.
“The state government itself has placed a significant landscape overlay on this very region, because half a million tourists visiting You Yangs will see this very property directly,” Rowntree said. he told Sky News Presenter Peta Credlin on Tuesday.
He accused ACEnergy of asking state planning minister Sonya Kilkenny to “clean it up, put a new coat on it and start again”.
Getaway host Catriona Rowntree is fighting a proposed lithium battery farm to be built next to her home in Little River.
ACEnergy’s massive 770-hectare lithium battery farm will be built at the base of You Yangs Regional Park
Rowntree said the fact that the area is prone to wildfires should have been enough to disqualify the farm from being built.
“372 cargo containers of lithium covering almost 40 acres of land… You’ve seen how many fires actually occur in this area of our property,” he said.
The consultation phase on the development of the farm is expected to end this week.
Rowntree is confident that his community, shocked by the proposal, will unite and protest against it.
“I love the fact that the people who tried to push this didn’t count on the strong reaction our community would have to it,” he added.
Rowntree says he was given a week’s notice to voice his opposition to the project after receiving a letter in the mail last month.
The notification letter was dated August 8, but the TV star claims she did not receive it until August 16.
After learning of the proposal, Rowntree has been gathering support to fight the proposal.
He The Victorian Department of Transport and Planning is currently considering the proposal.
A decision is made about the future of the farm. It is expected to be ready by the end of the year.
Ms Rowntree accused ACEnergy of lying in its proposal for the battery park, which she said was dangerous and counterproductive.
ACEnergy states on its website that the farm would be Provide a “reliable and flexible storage solution” and “help balance supply and demand” of energy in the area.
Rowntree said ACEnergy had tried to make the farm application process “as difficult as possible” so that his community would object.
Her local councillors found out about the project at the same time she did, because the application was submitted as a green energy project that bypassed them.
She said that if the council had been informed about the project, “it would never have passed the bar test.”
Rowntree accused ACEnergy’s consultants of “blatantly” lying to get the application approved and said the proposal was riddled with inaccuracies.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted ACEnergy for comment.