Three gigawatts. That’s roughly the combined generation capacity Squadron Energy was spruiking across its portfolio when Andrew Forrest’s private energy arm consolidated its holdings after the CWP Renewables acquisition settled in early 2023. Three years on, the gap between that headline number and what’s actually been commissioned, connected and generating into the National Electricity Market tells you most of what you need to know about the hard yards still ahead.
I’ve been tracking Squadron’s project pipeline for a while now, partly because the sheer scale of the ambition is genuinely interesting, and partly because big private energy announcements in Australia have a habit of looking very different once you read the development applications rather than the press release renders. Squadron is no exception — though to be fair, some of its assets are further along than the critics assumed.
How Squadron Energy came together #
Squadron Energy is Forrest’s private renewables vehicle, operating outside the ASX-listed Fortescue structure. The company was built in stages. The foundation was a series of greenfield wind and solar developments in Queensland and New South Wales, but the move that gave Squadron genuine scale was the acquisition of CWP Renewables, completed in early 2023 for a reported figure north of $4 billion. CWP had spent years assembling a development portfolio — Clarke Creek in central Queensland, Uungula Wind Farm in New South Wales, and a clutch of earlier-stage projects — and overnight Squadron became one of the most land-rich renewable developers in the country.
The ownership structure matters here. Because Squadron sits inside Forrest’s private Tattarang group rather than Fortescue Metals Group (now Fortescue Ltd), the financial reporting is not public in the way an ASX issuer’s would be. That limits what outside observers can verify. What we can work with is what’s gone through state planning systems, what AEMO has published on connection applications, and what Squadron has announced publicly.
Clarke Creek Wind Farm: the flagship in Queensland #
Clarke Creek is the project that Squadron talks about most, and for good reason — it’s the most advanced. Located in central Queensland, roughly 100 kilometres north-west of Rockhampton in the Isaac Regional Council area, the wind farm received Queensland government approval for up to 232 turbines across a substantial land footprint. The project is being developed in stages, which is standard practice for projects of this size but also means the commissioned capacity at any given moment is a fraction of the approved total.
Stage one generation has been reached, with wind turbines operating and feeding into the grid through connection to the high-voltage transmission network in central Queensland. Squadron has cited Clarke Creek as evidence that it can move projects from development approval through to operation, which is a fair point — a lot of developers never get that far. The subsequent stages depend on transmission capacity, and that’s where the Queensland SuperGrid Infrastructure Blueprint and the Copperstring 2032 project become relevant context. AEMO’s Integrated System Plan has consistently identified central and north Queensland as high-priority zones for new renewable capacity, which supports the investment logic, but the transmission build-out is not running ahead of generation — it’s running roughly alongside it, which creates sequencing risk.
Uungula Wind Farm and the New South Wales picture #
Uungula — previously known as White Rock Wind Farm Stage 2, before the CWP rebranding — sits in the New England region of New South Wales, an area that has become one of the most contested stretches of air in the country for wind development. The project has planning approval for a substantial number of turbines and is located within the New England Renewable Energy Zone, which the NSW government designated under the Electricity Infrastructure Investment Act 2020 as a priority zone for new generation and storage.
Being inside a declared REZ is genuinely meaningful — it means the state government has committed, at least in principle, to coordinating the transmission investment needed to evacuate the power. The practical question is timing. REZ infrastructure has moved slower than the original schedules suggested, and developers like Squadron are managing projects where the generation assets could theoretically be ready before the network can absorb them at full capacity. That’s not unique to Uungula — it’s a sector-wide issue — but it’s worth naming plainly rather than glossing over it in a portfolio summary.
For more on how the New South Wales wind pipeline has developed, the broader story is covered in our piece on the rise of wind energy in Australia.
Spicers Creek and the earlier-stage assets #
Spicers Creek Wind Farm, located in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales near the Warrumbungle Shire, is one of the projects that came into the Squadron portfolio via CWP and sits at an earlier stage of development. Planning processes for projects in this part of New South Wales run through the NSW Department of Planning, and the relevant state significant development pathway means the assessment is handled at the state level rather than by local councils — a distinction that matters because it largely removes local government approval as a blocking mechanism, though community consultation requirements remain.
Spicers Creek illustrates a wider point about Squadron’s portfolio: the company holds a lot of optionality — land agreements, development rights, connection enquiries lodged with AEMO — that has real value but isn’t the same as operating capacity. Some of those options will convert to built projects. Others will be sold, modified, or quietly shelved as the economics and transmission picture evolve. That’s normal in development, but it’s worth keeping in mind when reading the top-line portfolio numbers.
Battery storage and the merchant risk question #
Squadron has also flagged battery energy storage system projects alongside its wind and solar pipeline. Large-scale BESS development in Australia has accelerated sharply over the past two years, driven by falling battery prices and the revenue opportunity created by the frequency control ancillary services market and the spot market’s increasingly volatile pricing. AEMO’s 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities shows continued need for dispatchable capacity across the NEM, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland where ageing coal plant retirements are accelerating.
The honest challenge for Squadron — and for any merchant developer without a utility offtake agreement locking in revenue — is that building generation capacity at this scale requires either very patient capital or bankable contracts. Forrest has demonstrated he’s willing to back long-duration bets with private money, and Tattarang has the balance sheet to do it. But the energy market has a way of humbling even well-capitalised players who underestimate how long the gap between financial close and first revenue can stretch. I’ll be watching what proportion of the Squadron portfolio eventually moves under a long-term power purchase agreement versus remaining fully merchant.
The broader shift in Australia’s generation mix gives Squadron’s wind assets a structural tailwind, but structural tailwinds don’t pay construction debt. The offtake story matters as much as the turbine count.
Where Squadron sits in the transition #
Compared with the listed developers — AGL, Origin Energy, Meridian, Neoen (now absorbed into AGL’s portfolio) — Squadron operates with less public scrutiny and more flexibility. Private ownership means Forrest can move quickly when he wants to, doesn’t need to manage quarterly earnings guidance, and can absorb development losses on individual projects that would create board-level pressure in a listed company. That’s a real structural advantage in an industry where the early movers on constrained REZ capacity will likely be the ones who get grid connection offers.
It also means the public record is thinner. The Australian Energy Regulator’s published data on generation and market participation gives us a window into what’s actually operating, and the state planning portals give us the approvals picture, but the financials sit behind private company walls. That’s not a criticism — private companies are entitled to privacy — but it does mean any assessment of Squadron’s health has to work from a partial picture.
The offshore wind question is also hanging there. Forrest has made public statements about interest in offshore development, and the federal government’s offshore wind licensing framework under the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 has opened areas including the Gippsland and Hunter declared areas to competitive licence applications. Whether Squadron makes a serious play in offshore — which would put it in direct competition with developers like BlueFloat, Macquarie and Star of the South — or focuses its capital on the onshore portfolio it already holds is a strategic question I don’t think has been resolved publicly yet. Our coverage of offshore wind development in Australia lays out the licensing framework in detail if you want the regulatory backdrop.
My honest read #
In my view, Squadron Energy is a serious developer with real assets and the financial backing to see projects through — but the gap between the portfolio scale it advertises and the megawatts it has actually commissioned is still wide enough to warrant scepticism about the three-to-five-year buildout timeline. Clarke Creek Stage 1 is a genuine achievement. The subsequent stages, Uungula, Spicers Creek and the BESS pipeline face the same transmission sequencing and offtake questions that are slowing every large-scale developer in the NEM right now. Forrest’s track record in resources is extraordinary, but renewables project development in Australia, with its layered state and federal approvals, connection queue management and community engagement requirements, is a different animal from iron ore logistics. The ambition is real. Whether the execution matches it will become clearer as AEMO’s connection offer data for the next cohort of projects is published later this year.
After a swim at Bar Beach this morning — trying to work off the mid-week fog — I came back and pulled up the AEMO generation information page for Queensland. Clarke Creek was dispatching. That’s something, anyway.
— Callum Hayes, Wind & Offshore Correspondent
