The Federal Government on Saturday announced that a consortium led by BP Solar and  a proposal put forward by French nuclear giant Areva had won the 1st round of funding under the $1.5 billion Solar Flagships Program.

The BP Solar group, which includes Australian renewable energy group Pacific Hydro and Spanish solar giant FRV will built a 150MW solar PV installation at Moree in New South Wales at a cost of $923 million. They will receive $306 million funding from the flagships program and $120 million from the state government.

 The consortium built off rival bids from Australian utilities AGL and TRUenergy, who had both teamed with US market leader First Solar and Bovis Lend Lease in separate bids, and another proposal from Infigen Energy and China's Suntech.

The Areva consortium, which also includes CS Energy and Wind Prospect, will build a 250MW solar thermal power station in Chinchilla, Queensland, with the Federal Government contributing $464 million.

The power station will be built adjacent to the Kogan Creek coal-fired power station and will be a solar/gas hybrid, with gas providing 15 per cent of the power to extend the production range of the facility.

The facility will use compact linear fresnel technology - using flat mirrors - developed by Australia's Dr David Mills, whose company Ausra was bought by Areva early last year.

The bid beat out rival proposals from a consortium led by Transfield, which wanted to convert its Collinsville power station into a 150MW linear fresnel plant, at another comprising Parsons Brinckerhoff, John Holland, Siemens and others which proposed to build a 150ME parabolic trough plant at kogan Creek. 

Another project shortlisted from the 52 applicants came from Spain's Acciona Energy, but was withdrawn.