Renewable energy

A renewable energy proposal is decided as much by the people around it as by the resource under it. Landholders decide whether to host it, neighbours decide whether to oppose it, councils and agencies decide whether it is approved, and the bodies that decide those projects now ask what the developer did to earn each of those decisions. SCA advises developers of generation, storage and the infrastructure that connects them, from the first landholder conversation to the handover into operations.

## Why the engagement record now decides more

Three changes in the past two years have put a developer’s engagement record in front of the people who decide its projects: the Australian Government’s response to the Community Engagement Review and the rating scheme that followed it, the consultation on a national standard for community engagement, and South Australia’s licensing of renewable energy on designated land.

The Australian Government’s Community Engagement Review examined engagement in renewable energy infrastructure projects and made nine recommendations, and in its response of 2 February 2024 the government accepted all nine in principle. The Developer Rating Scheme the review recommended opened to industry on 6 March 2026. Equifax, the independent scheme operator, assesses renewable energy developers and transmission companies against seven criteria, including community, capability and capital.

The scheme is voluntary, but applicants to Capacity Investment Scheme Tender 11, the Western Australian round announced on 25 August 2026, must have commenced an assessment, and the government has said the requirement will apply to later rounds. Starting an assessment is different from having obtained a rating.

The Australian Government also consulted on an exposure draft of a National Environmental Standard for Community Engagement between 9 June and 7 July 2026. The consultation record establishes that process and its dates; the requirements that will apply depend on the standard as it is made.

In South Australia, the Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Act 2023 (SA) provides licensing arrangements for specified hydrogen and renewable-energy activities on designated land, which includes pastoral land, state waters and prescribed Crown land. For renewable energy feasibility tenders in declared release areas, the department’s Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Regulatory Guideline 004, release area tender criteria guidelines, January 2026 addresses evidence about land agreements, proposed negotiations and community benefits. Applicants need to address the criteria selected in the relevant tender notice; these are not universal requirements for every renewable-energy project.

What a developer did about engagement is now read by the people deciding its projects.

## The decisions where engagement matters

• Before a site is settled: how to approach landholders and neighbours before the first agreement is signed, what to say while the design is not fixed, and what to record so that later commitments can be traced to the conversation that made them.
• For approvals: an engagement plan and report that say who was consulted, what they were told, how their input was used and what changed, written to what the assessing agency and the community will look for; a community reference group with terms of reference that hold through the first difficult meeting. In New South Wales, renewable energy zones bring several projects’ consultations into the same communities at once, so a proposal is judged alongside its neighbours’ conduct as well as its own.
• Benefit sharing: consultation that establishes what a community values before a fund or an offer is designed, so that a benefit is not read as payment for silence.
• Construction: notices, complaints handling, and the record of commitments carried from the development team to the contractor and back.
• Operations: the handover of every promise made during development, so that the people who made them are not the only ones who remember them. The engagement handover guide sets out the record.

## What SCA offers

SCA reviews a developer’s engagement plan, records and reporting against the evidence a rating assessment or a licence tender asks for, and identifies what is missing while there is still time to gather it. Equifax remains responsible for its assessment; SCA does not award or guarantee a rating.

SCA prepares and reviews engagement plans, maps stakeholders and assigns an owner to each relationship, designs and facilitates landholder meetings, information sessions and reference groups, prepares the material that explains a proposal and the decisions still open, and writes the engagement report that an approvals submission, a licence tender or a developer rating assessment needs. Technical specialists supply the evidence on impacts; SCA puts it in front of the community in time to respond, and builds the record that shows what the developer did with the response. Engagement with First Nations people is shaped with the relevant rights-holders and representatives, with the required expertise brought in. The engagement record needs to distinguish what SCA prepares from the technical, legal and project decisions held by others.

SCA also advises on the corporate affairs side of a project: the issues register, the positions and core messages a developer takes into council chambers, community halls and the media, and the briefings and submissions that go to government.

## An assignment with SCA

The first conversation covers the stage the project is at, the approvals or licence process it faces, the people already engaged and the commitments already made. SCA then prepares a written scope and quote before work starts. Assignments range from a review of an existing plan to the engagement programme for a project through to commissioning.