Adani, which is vying to build Australia’s largest coalmine, has announced the site of a $200m solar farm near a central Queensland mining town.

The Indian energy conglomerate plans to build a 100-200 MW solar plant on 600ha that was formerly part of the Rugby Run grazing property near Moranbah.

Adani, India’s largest solar generator, said on Thursday the Rugby Run solar farm would be “one of the world’s most advanced solar energy plants”.

The company’s first solar foray in Australia has prompted rare praise from environmental groups, including one that has taken it on in court over its bitterly contested Carmichael coal project near Bowen.

Peter McCallum, of Mackay Conservation Group, said on Monday the company’s latest move would bring it far more widespread support.

“Adani is fundamentally an energy company, not a miner, and its expertise is shifting rapidly towards becoming a clean energy producer in India and now in Australia.”

Rugby Run is the first of a number of solar projects through which Adani plans to provide up to 1500MW in Australia within the next five years.

Adani said: “The solar projects are part of Adani’s balanced approach to power generation with coal-fired, solar and wind plants supporting the energy policies of the nations in which Adani operates.”

Anne Baker, the mayor of Isaac regional council, said the solar plant was an “exciting” development for a local government area that contains 24 of Queensland’s operating coalmines and produces 63% of its saleable coal.

“It’s fantastic to see a project that will diversify our economy from its dominant mining base,” she said.

Adani said it would start building the Rugby Run plant in mid-2017 and finish within 12 months.

The construction would create up to 350 jobs, while five fulltime staff would then operate the solar farm.

Adani has applied to public utility Powerlink to connect the plant and feed into the state electricity network.

The company has built 793MW of solar generating capacity in India to date, including one of the world’s largest solar plants, a 648MW facility in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.