PRISM: Discovering Land for Solar Growth in Australia

Australia’s clean-energy drive is running headfirst into an older, slower system. It’s one that’s built for fossil fuels and tangled in red tape. Even as international investments pour into domestic renewables, many solar projects are delayed indefinitely, snagged by bureaucratic and system-level barriers that money alone can’t fix.

The bottlenecks slowing clean energy development in Australia (planning, grid, zoning)

To limit warming to 1.5°C, the country needs to scale up zero-emissions electricity at a pace the grid has never seen. But planning, zoning, and grid access issues threaten both the emissions targets and the economic gains that ride on a fully decarbonized power supply.

Planning

Permitting processes are getting faster in some jurisdictions, but the time it takes to get a renewable project approved is anything but uniform. Only 40% of large-scale solar projects secure development approval within 6 months, and most take 16. Battery and onshore wind projects take much longer.

Every month lost in permitting threatens to destabilize the grid as coal plants shut down. After all, the most cost-efficient way to replace that baseload is to increase renewables from about 50% of the grid today to over 90% by 2035. That transition could save east coast energy users  $34.9 billion between now and 2050. But multi-year approval cycles still lock projects into multi-year limbo, in part because planning codes can’t absorb the sheer number of applications in the pipeline.

Grid access 

Australia needs 5,000 kilometers of new transmission lines to stay ahead of the east coast’s electricity demand, which is expected to spike by 50% in the next 10 years as EVs flood the market and electrification replaces gas and coal across heavy industry. But if these lines don’t arrive in time, many renewable projects risk becoming stranded assets where they’re built and ready to run, but unable to export power.

Zoning

Even with designated Renewable Energy Zones in place, land-use rules vary from one state or council to the next, burying projects in conflicting regulations and redundant paperwork.

But developers might not have to fly blind for much longer, at least in some regions. The Australian Conservation Foundation recently published a map of the east coast identifying where solar and wind farms could be built quickly and responsibly. The map labels Gippsland in Victoria, Central West Orana in New South Wales, and Banana Shire in Queensland as examples of where clean energy can grow without clashing with local biodiversity or provoking community backlash.

Federal and state levers that actually speed projects up

Private developers can build solar farms, but only public investment can ensure that those megawatts have somewhere to go. 

Faster, clearer planning rules

Planning approval timelines need to shrink so that viable projects don’t sink in regulatory quicksand. Analysts are urging federal and state governments to agree on how projects should move through the system, meaning who approves what and when. Uniform permitting rules and land use policies will give developers longer-range certainty, and communities a clearer sense of what’s coming.

Foundational funding for infrastructure

About 97% of disaster relief funding in Australia is spent after the damage is done. It goes toward rebuilding damaged infrastructure instead of preventing avoidable loss in the first place. But simulations show that reallocating even just a fraction toward prevention (such as $2 billion over five years) could save $19 billion by 2050.

Analysts think that energy infrastructure could benefit from the same logic. Government-led grid upgrades done before project tenders are issued can reduce financial risk for developers and stabilize long-term energy prices.

Meaningful support for landowners

Energy economists are also pressing the government to find more ways to turn rural farmers into long-term green energy partners by backing agrisolar programs, using land for both solar generation and farming.

Early deployments have successfully shown that clean energy doesn’t need to compete with farming operations. At the University of Queensland’s Gatton Solar Farm, sheep that graze beneath solar panels save the university $100,000 in mowing maintenance. They also tend to produce better-quality wool, a small but telling example of how shared land use can produce more than power.

More than good optics, the numbers actually work. Hosting solar panels could allow farmers to earn $1,500 per hectare per year. The economics are even more compelling from a national perspective. Landholders are expected to earn as much as $9.7 billion from renewable projects over the next 25 years.

How PRISM de‑risks Australian solar siting in one workflow

With PRISM parcel functionality coming soon to Australia here is a brief overview of the tool’s capabilities. As shown in the table above, PRISM will be released in phases in Oceania, starting with parcels and subsequently releasing the other functionalities available in the US and across Europe.

PRISM pulls together everything you need to zero in on viable parcels (zoning overlays, land exclusion layers, and grid availability data) in one platform, so you don’t waste six months on a dead lead.

Better site selection

Simply set the project’s size, your location preferences, and target IRR or payback thresholds, and the platform filters for sites that match.

Beyond geography, PRISM also lets you scan interconnection queues and even check for scheduled coal retirements. Do you want to track policy incentives to find regions with strong growth potential and fewer competitors? PRISM does that, too. Use its benchmarking tools to see how your target sites compare with others in terms of LCOE, marginal pricing, and battery potential.

Reduced planning delays

Even well-positioned projects can stumble over hidden issues, like environmental constraints and unclear land ownership, that can surface far too late, after your capex is already committed. PRISM helps you see those risks coming.

You can apply exclusion filters to automatically screen out protected areas and floodplains. Layer in grid data to see which substations are nearby, what voltage they support, and how congested their connection queues are. You can even view parcel ownership records to identify who to contact when it’s time to start negotiations.

Faster project delivery

Once you’ve found land worth pursuing, PRISM can layer in terrain and solar exposure data from trusted sources like NASA and PVGIS. You can then test different module types, inverter specs, and mounting systems to see how each configuration affects your project’s output and cost.

Grid connection planning happens in the same workflow. PRISM can help you map out optimal cable routes, transformer sizing, and connection points so you’re never working from scratch.

Although this is the first step for PRISM in the region, it is an exciting time for those looking to start their PRISM journey, learn about the tool, and begin to cut through the challenges of finding suitable land for their PV plant.