Contact Energy is teaming up with an international solar developer for a series of grid-scale solar generation projects.
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It will create up to 380,000 megawatt hours of energy by 2026 - enough to power 50,000 homes.
The project is being planned in partnership with London-based solar developer Lightsource BP (LSBP), which is 50 percent owned by British Petroleum.
The announcement comes just days after energy company Helios, backed by a senior Google executive, said it was also working on grid-scale solar generation projects.
Contact Energy said under the new 50/50 joint venture with LSBP, both companies will source, develop and construct multiple solar farm projects in various locations across the country.
Contact will be able to purchase the electricity generated from the projects via a long-term purchase agreement.
Its chief executive Mike Fuge said the new partnership aligned with the company's decarbonisation strategy.
"Our strategy lays out a path for Contact to decarbonise New Zealand, and a critical aspect of this is our commitment to help meet the massive, anticipated demand for renewable electricity.
"We're very pleased to be joining forces with Lightsource BP - their team has deep solar development expertise and a hugely impressive track record," Fuge said.
LSBP is a major solar developer active across 18 countries and has delivered more than 5.4 gigawatts of utility scale solar projects globally.
Its Australia and New Zealand country manager, Adam Pegg, said the partnership with Contact is exclusive.
"Grid-scale solar generation is a natural fit for New Zealand's current generation mix and this partnership sees an experienced and highly-regarded New Zealand generator and retailer join forces with our global solar expertise to create cost-competitive and reliable solar power.
"Recently we announced our ambition to develop 25GW of solar power projects across the world by 2025, and this partnership with Contact is a further milestone in that journey," he said.
The projects are expected create around 500 construction jobs over the next four years, Pegg said.
Contact and LSBP said they expect to announce details of their first potential development site in the coming months, and are aiming to start electricity generation by 2024.
The past few weeks has seen a flurry of large-scale renewable energy generation projects.
Aside from the two solar projects announced by Contact, LSBP and Helios, the New Zealand Super Fund and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced last month they were exploring the feasibility of large-scale off-shore wind generation off the Taranaki coast.
