Enormous solar farm planned for Gympie area, Queensland
Queensland company lodges plan to build Australia’s biggest solar farm near Gympie, ABC News, By Bruce Atkinson, 19 Apr 17, A company proposing to build Australia’s largest solar farm near Gympie says the $2 billion facility will eventually supply about 15 per cent of south-east Queensland’s power needs.
Queensland company Solar Q has lodged a development application with the Gympie Council to build a solar farm and battery storage facility 30 kilometres north-west of the city.
The project will be built in stages, with initial approval being sought for a 350-megawatt facility, but within four years it is proposed to increase this to 800 megawatts or enough electricity to power about 315,000 homes.
Managing director Scott Armstrong said the finished facility would be the biggest in Australia but “the way the market is going is that there will be bigger projects that will come on”……..
When completed, around 3 million solar panels will provide power to the network on the 17-square-kilometre site. During peak consumption at night, the battery storage facility, which is powered by the grid, will ease the load on power stations……..
The proponents are not expecting any hurdles to approval from the Gympie Council or State Government agencies, Mr Armstrong said.
“Solar and battery storages are a static generation facility so it will produce minimal noise, it doesn’t emit, it doesn’t have particulates from chimney stacks, it doesn’t have ash dams, so we are not expecting any impediments with regards to getting approvals,” he said.
Once the approvals are in place Mr Armstrong expects the connection agreement with the transmission company will be finalised.
He said the project would be funded by private investors, including superannuation management funds.Work is expected to start by the end of the year…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/mega-solar-farm-planned-for-gympie-qld/8451774
Huge surge in household solar panel installations
Solar panel installations ‘skyrocket’ in Australia, ABC News, By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge , 14 Apr 17 There has been a big surge in the number of households installing solar panels, with March installations reaching their highest level in almost five years.
Key points:
- Solar panels were installed on about 15,000 homes and businesses in March 2017
- Installations have hit their highest level in almost five years
- Experts say rising electricity bills and recent blackouts in SA are turning people to solar
Warwick Johnston from energy consultancy firm Sunwiz crunched the numbers and said 91 megawatts of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems were installed during the month.
“March has been a very impressive month for 2017,” he said.
“We already saw a surge starting to build up in 2016, and we were wondering if that was going to continue into 2017 and it really has just continued to skyrocket.”
Queensland led the way, installing 25 megawatts of capacity, which is enough to power about 5,500 homes and businesses.
Installations were also up in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.
Mr Johnston said the recent blackouts in South Australia were a factor in the rising demand.
“People are certainly aware of the benefits of solar power and storage to offset or protect against grid blackouts, and that has been a driving factor in the uptake of solar,” he said.
“We’re seeing the uptake occur in states which weren’t affected by those blackouts as well, so it really is people being aware that solar panels are a great way to beat rising electricity bills.”
Installation figures in Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT were flat……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-14/solar-panel-installations-skyrocket-in-australia/8443550
Broken Hill’s giant leap – from mining hub to solar centre
Renewables roadshow: how Broken Hill went from mining to drag queens and solar farms The home of BHP and Mad Max can now take credit for kickstarting the large-scale solar industry in Australia, Guardian, Michael Slezak, 13 Apr 17, “…….Broken Hill gave birth to one of the least renewable industries on Earth, but it can now claim to be the Australian birthplace of one of the most renewable.
Officially opened in January 2016, the plants were built with subsidies from the federal government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena), as well as support from the NSW government.
With that funding, AGL was able to jump into the large-scale solar industry, and in doing so, create a supply chain that is bringing down the cost of solar farms around the country.
For example, Mackett says a manufacturing plant in the struggling car industry retooled to provide the frames for the solar panels, and is now able to do that for the whole industry. Continue reading
The Parkinson Report: Rooftop solar now Queensland’s biggest power station
Rooftop solar now Queensland’s biggest power station http://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-now-queenslands-biggest-power-station-14848/By Giles Parkinson on 12 April 2017 One Step Off The Grid
The 1,805MW of solar PV capacity on the rooftops of Queensland homes and business now amount to be the biggest power station by capacity in the state, overtaking the 1,780MW of the Gladstone coal fired power station.
The milestone was reached after homeowners and business owners in Queensland added 25MW of rooftop solar capacity in the month of March, the highest since the premium feed-in tariffs of 2012, when households were offered 46c/kWh for their solar power.
Now, they get around 6c/kWh (some smaller retailers offer 10c/kWh) for their exports back to the grid, but the falling costs of rooftop solar, the prospect of competitive battery storage, and the soaring costs of grid power appear to be driving another solar boom.
The likely passing of the milestone was flagged last month by energy minister Mark Bailey, who told a battery storage conference in Brisbane that:
“The combined solar rooftops are now the second largest power generator, just behind the 1680 MW Gladstone Power Station – which emits approximately 11.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas each year, versus zero from the sun and our second biggest generator.
“So Queensland, as a significant renewables market, is on the transition path. We see our role as a state government as being a facilitator in that transition.”
Queensland is not actually the only state or territory where rooftop solar is the biggest power station. In the ACT, there is 59MW of rooftop solar, but the only competition within the boundaries of the ACT is the 20MW Royalla large-scale solar farm.
There are no gas or coal-fired generators within the boundaries of the national capital, and the ACT is now well on its way to sourcing the equivalent of 100 per cent of its electricity needs from renewable energy by 2020, after contracting a series of new solar and wind farms across South Australia, Victoria and NSW.
In Western Australia, there is 696MW of rooftop solar, but it falls short of the 854MW of the ageing Muja power station, while in South Australia there is 722MW of rooftop solar, still well short of the Torrens Island gas fired generator of 1280MW, although half of that capacity comes from the Torrens Island A, which is 50 years old and tipped for retirement some time soon.
This article was originally published on RenewEconomy’s sister site, One Step Off The Grid, which focuses on customer experience and ambitions with distributed generation. To sign up to One Step’s free weekly newsletter, please click here.
Huge 300MW solar farm begins construction near Port Augusta,
Isn’t this a brilliant outcome? For the last few years, the nuclear lobby has been touting Port Augista as the place for a nuclear power station. Following the absolute defeat of the shonky South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, and thanks to all those who fought against it, so brilliantly – South Australia now could become a world leader in modern clean energy.
REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 11 April 2017 The first two stage of a 300MW solar farm – Australia’s biggest – has begun construction near Port Augusta in South Australia after its developers last Friday reached financial close on the project, and agreed to sell it to two of Europe’s biggest investors in renewables, Italy’s Enel Green Energy and the Dutch Infrastructure Fund.
The first two stages, totalling 220MW, of the Bungala project is being built around 12kms from Port Augusta, where the state’s last coal fired generator closed last May. Ironically, project developer Reach Energy is headed by Tony Concannon, the former head of the owners of the Hazelwood brown coal generator in Victoria which closed late last month.
The two first stages of Bungala will be completed late in 2018, and will be built by Spanish company Elecnor, which recently completed the 57MW Moree project in NSW and the smaller 21MW Barcaldine project in Queensland.
Bungala will be built “battery storage ready”, and will also likely be the first major solar farm to participate in Australia’s FCAS market (frequency control and ancillary services), using SMA inverter technology to provide voltage control for the grid.
Concannon says the remaining 80MW of capacity could be built – along with battery storage – should the company win a South Australian government tender for 25 per cent of its electricity needs with “dispatchable” renewables.
Reach has submitted proposals for both 20MWh of battery storage and 100MWh, although it did not participate in the other tender for a separate 100MWh battery unit. If the tender is not successful, there are also discussions with other potential off-takers in train…….
The new plant, he says, will be designed to provide FCAS – even at night, after the sun has gone down. “What a number of people don’t realise is that you can design ancillary services for solar plants to operate at night time.
“We can draw in power from the grid at night, and use the inverter technologies to regulate voltage, and that helps stabilise the system, even when the sun is not shining.”
Unlike battery storage in households, which he describes as mostly “passive” and focused on converting the output of solar panels from DC power to AC power so it can be put into the grid, utility-scale inverter technologies are able to shape voltage and current very quickly and in a very flexible manner. Modern wind farms are also using the same technologies.
“The inverter changes phase between the voltage and current … inverters can pull the current in, and change the phase to what grid wants.”
Concannon, a power engineer, says it is a tricky subject to try and explain, but says a lot of the articles he has read in the media – about wind and solar not being able to provide grid services – are wrong……..http://reneweconomy.com.au/huge-300mw-solar-farm-begins-construction-near-port-augusta-63411/
New South Wales grid operator gets 6,000MW solar proposals in 2017
Transgrid gets 6,000MW solar proposals in 2017, sees 95% renewables by 2050 http://reneweconomy.com.au/transgrid-gets-6000mw-solar-proposals-2017-sees-95-renewables-2050/ By Giles Parkinson on 7 April 2017 Transgrid, the owner and operator of the main transmission line in New South Wales, reports that is has received “enquiries” about more than 6,000MW of large scale solar so far in 2017.The figure, revealed by business development manager Gustavo Bodini at the Large Scale Solar conference hosted by RenewEconomy and Informa earlier this week, is more than a six fold increase over 2016, and highlights the huge interest in solar as it matches wind on costs and beats new gas (and new coal) by a significant margin.
Of course, not all that 6,000MW will be built, or even get to development approval stage, but large scale solar is clearly the energy source of choice at the moment, accounting for at least half of new projects for the renewable energy target – a share that is likely to increase in coming years.
Amy Kean, the renewable energy advocate for the NSW government, showed this slide (on original) at the conference, indicating the amount of large scale solar already installed, under construction, and those in the pipeline and the “stealth” projects, which may well refer to the Transgrid enquiries.
This graph above from Transgrid’s Bodini is the most striking – because it predicts that by 2050, 95 per cent of the demand will be delivered by renewable energy – some 65 per cent from large scale renewables like wind and solar and hydro, and another 30 per cent from “distributed energy”.
That’s why, says Bodini, we need to get out and test new technologies, such as battery storage, to see how they operate and integrate with the grid.
There is some grace. There will be enough synchronous generation, Bodini says, within the whole National Electricity Market by 2030 to provide the inertia required to keep the grid stable. From that point, as more of the legacy coal and gas plants retire, it will be up to new technologies to take over.
The grid of the future, he says, will focus on better ways of managing peak demand, energy efficiency, widespread deployment of distributed generation (mostly solar), network based storage and new market rules to allow this to happen and one that promotes “genuine competition” and protects consumers when there is ineffective competition.
Fossil fuel scare campaign backfires – renewed boom in solar rooftops
February recorded more capacity than November. And now March capacity has shot 16 per cent higher than December.
This has got us thinking at Green Energy Markets that more fundamental and longer term drivers are potentially supporting this increased capacity.
it doesn’t quite work out the way the fossil fuel industry that dreamed up the PR campaign intended. Households and businesses start worrying and think I need to take things into my own hands – and that happens to mean a solar system.
Rooftop solar enjoys second boom as fossil fuel scare campaign backfires, REneweconomy By Tristan Edis on 7 April 2017 It appears the fossil fuel industry’s scare campaign over renewable energy driving up the price of electricity is having the same desired effect that it had back in 2011, when they campaigned against placing a penalty on polluting the atmosphere with global warming gases.
Yep you guessed it – households and businesses are flocking to install solar on their rooftops.
Green Energy Markets’ Solar Report assessment of STC creation data shows that March hit levels of capacity not seen since the days of 45c to 60c premium feed-in tariffs in 201, when there was also an STC rebate that was twice to five times its current level.
All up, we estimate almost 92MW (92,000 kilowatts) of rooftop solar PV capacity created certificates in March………. Continue reading
New Queensland homes can have Solar + Tesla battery storage
Solar + Tesla battery storage offered in new-build Queensland homes http://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-tesla-battery-storage-offered-in-new-build-queensland-homes-64366/ By Sophie Vorrath on 5 April 2017 One Step Off The Grid
Another of Australia’s major housing developers, the Melbourne-Based group Metricon, will offer rooftop solar and storage as an optional extra in a range of its new-build homes in Queensland, via a new partnership with local installer and Tesla battery reseller CSR Bradford.
CSR Bradford – whose NSW-based company started in insulation more than 80 years ago, and has since expanded into energy efficiency and solar and storage through Bradford Solar – is an accredited Tesla Powerwall reseller, and has been watching the growth of the battery storage market closely over the past few years.
The deal with Metricon, announced this week, takes the company one step closer to its vision of solar and battery storage being included as a standard feature in all newly built houses in Australia – something the company’s managing director, Anthony Tannous has predicted will be the norm in just a few years’ time.
According to the Metricon website, Queensland customers who upgrade to the builder’s “luxury living” offer will get CSR Bradford’s a 5-6kW Solar ChargePack, which includes solar panels, a SolarEdge inverter and Tesla’s 14kWh Powerall 2 lihtiu-ion battery pack.
As Tesla has itself claimed, the Metricon 5kW offer promise to give the average house of four up to 90 per cent electricity self sufficiency on an average day, while the 6kW solar offer is said to give the average Australian family “little or no reliance on the grid.”
In financial terms, households choosing the Luxury Living” upgrade – which costs $1,999 for a single story home and $4,999 for a double story home – is expected to save the Metricon households $2,100 a year on energy costs.
CSR Bradford has similar packages being offered in Victoria, through Arden Homes, and in New South Wales with Mojo Homes.
“I have a vision that every house built in a few years time will have a battery installed, it just makes so much sense,” Tannous told One Step Off The Grid in an interview last month. “We’ve been working with most of the major builders across Australia and a lot of them are starting to include storage as standard… while others offer it as an upgrade,” he said. “And that will just gain more momentum.”
With big solar, Australia can meet renewable energy target of 33,000GWh by 2020
Arrival of big solar puts renewable energy target back on track, REneweconomy, By Sophie Vorrath on 4 April 2017 Australia is now on track to meet its renewable energy target of 33,000GWh by 2020, Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator has said, driven largely by the current burst of growth in the large-scale solar market.
Jay Hender, the Regulator’s general manager of technical assessment and support, said that while building another 6000MW of installed renewable energy capacity between now and 2020 remained a “significant task”, activity in Australia’s renewables sector was mounting by the week.
“We had a very slow start to 2016, which built up to big action in the last quarter, leading into the beginning of (2017),” Hender told the 2017 Large-Scale Solar Conference co-hosted by RenewEconomy and Informa on Monday. He said that 2,000MW of wind and solar had been committed in 2016, and this trend continued into 2017, with another 1GW of commitments.
“We’re tracking pretty well, I would say, for this point in time.”
Hender pointed to the big uptick in large-scale solar activity, that gained momentum at the end of 2016 and was continuing to do so this year, as a big driver of this progress.
Big solar has become a bigger and bigger portion of new installed capacity, and is currently sitting at around 50:50 with wind, Hender said. “That’s a pretty big change over a short period of time,” he added.
And he said the quieter achievements of Australia’s commercial solar sector – big solar’s “poor little cousin” – was also an increasingly important contributor to the 2020 target.
“(Here) you’ve got large, significant energy consumption during the day, and large roof space,” he said, noting the largely untapped potential of the commercial and industrial solar sector.“In essence there’s been a doubling of the capacity of (commercial solar) projects, year on year, year on year.“You don’t have to be a mathematician to know that … amounts to exponential growth. From big things little thing grow,” he said.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance associate Leonard Quong warned that despite this new build, shortfalls could be expected in LGC deliveries in 2018, keeping LGC prices at near penalty prices and maintaining pressure on politicians about the “cost of renewables”, even though the actual cost of the technology continued to fall…….http://reneweconomy.com.au/arrival-of-big-solar-puts-renewable-energy-target-back-on-track-56713/
A cautionary tale about going off grid with solar energy
The “off-grid” guy is not happy with his off-grid system http://reneweconomy.com.au/the-off-grid-guy-is-not-happy-with-his-off-grid-system-58229/ By Giles Parkinson on 5 April 2017 One Step Off The Grid
Michael Mobbs has been involved in sustainability for more than two decades, leading public discourse with his “sustainable house” blog, cutting his connections to mains water and sewer more than two decades ago, and finally cutting the electricity wires to his inner-Sydney terrace home in March, 2015.
His exploits and determination to lead a self-suficent lifestyle earned him the sobriquet of the “off-grid-guy”. But two years after cutting the link to the electricity grid, Mobbs is deeply frustrated – his off-grid system is not working anywhere near as well as he expected.
For the last few weeks, in cloudy, rainy Sydney, Mobbs has had to turn off the fridge during the day to ensure that the house, which he shares with two others, has enough power for a “civilised life” at night-time. Worse than that, his system has a bug in it that causes it to trip every two days. Flashing digital lights have become part of his life.
“I’m running short of power,” Mobbs complains. He reckons that the system that he has in place is delivering 1kWh a day less than he expected. “I thought this would be a walk in the park, but I appear to have tripped over.”
Mobbs in now looking to replace the system, and has even launched a public ‘invitation” for people to suggest solutions. (Submissions are due on April 13).
But he wants this to be a public discourse, because from his experience he sees a cautionary tale for anyone looking to install battery storage, and particularly those who are looking to go off grid.
“I don’t live off-grid just for myself,” he writes on his blog. “I live off-grid to trial and to show options, create and publish real-life data for others, to give hope through action and accountability. ”
But he admits that his particular journey for going off-grid for electricity is incomplete. “When complete, and the new replacement system is installed soon, the project will show what is feasible.”
Although battery storage has been used for decades, mostly in remote areas that don’t easily connect to the grid, the mass-market is new, and so are many of the products now available to those in the inner city, suburbs, and regional towns.
And battery storage is a complex business – it relies so much on the consumer’s usage pattern, available solar power, local weather, orientation and how it is configured and paired with other hardware and software such as inverters and solar panels. Going off grid requires a bespoke solution.
Some people have the money and can throw surplus dollars and capacity at the solution. Hobbs clearly wants to find a smarter way – and in the inner city, he is restricted by space.
Mobbs says that from his experience it is pretty clear that there is a consumer blind spot. He now emphasises the need to be clear about what is wanted from the system, and for good monitoring and analytics to indicate what is going wrong and when.
So what did go wrong with his system?
Port Augusta ‘buzzing’ over deal for solar power plant
Port Augusta mayor Sam Johnson ‘absolutely ecstatic’ solar power plant will be finally funded Adam Langenberg, Political reporter, Sunday Mail (SA) April 2, 2017 THE city at the centre of South Australia’s power crisis is “buzzing” after a highly anticipated plan to build a 100MW solar thermal plant took one huge leap closer to reality.Excited locals say the promise of a $110 million concessional loan to proponents is “absolutely huge” and 
transformative for the city, while project backers say the State Government must award its power supply contract to provide certainty.
Mayor Sam Johnson said he was “absolutely ecstatic” the project was a step closer but he took a shot at the Federal Government for only delivering on its promise as part of a deal with Senator Xenophon to support its company tax cut package.
“There was certainly a buzz around town because it’s no secret we’ve had a few bad shots in the arm in the last 18 months,’’ Mr Johnson said.
“We’re looking for that positivity and we know we can deliver the next chapter.”
Senator Xenophon said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had assured him the project “was a goer” and welcomed the Government’s clear commitment to solar thermal generation at Port Augusta. “It will transform the town and be a beacon of hope. It will also change the way we look at energy, by providing virtual baseload with a molten salt storage,” Senator Xenophon said. “I just want it to happen. I’m happy to work with the Prime Minister………
..Repower Port Augusta Dan Spencer reiterated both proponents, SolarReserve and Solarstor, needed to clinch an electricity supply deal with the State Government before progressing further.
“It puts the ball right in Jay’s (Premier Weatherill) court,” Mr Spencer said.
“They’ve got the guarantee of the federal loan so they can lock it in now by providing the power contract.”
Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said applications for the electricity contract were being assessed and the Government had “numerous policies in place to support a potential solar thermal plant.”http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/port-augusta-mayor-sam-johnson-absolutely-ecstatic-solar-power-plant-will-be-finally-funded/news-story/55acc17df92d7f9cef77b6548aae488c
Australian govt commits $110m for Port Augusta solar towers
Last year, Australia’s clean energy movement had a major victory, with South Australia’s resounding 
rejection of the plan for nuclear waste importation, (and later for, nuclear power). Some nuclear proponents also looked to Port August as the place for a nuclear power station.
The Liberal Coalition government now supports a solar power station instead. Of course, they were dragged kicking and screaming, into this, by a piece of deft politicking from Senator Nick Xenophon. But – so keen was PM Turnbull, to get new legislation on tax passed, that he had to swallow his aversion to non fossil-fuel energy. We wait to see how well the govt carries out this commitment
Coalition commits $110m for Port Augusta solar towers http://reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-commits-110m-for-port-augusta-solar-towers-11045/ By Giles Parkinson on 31 March 2017 The federal Coalition government has announced that it will provide $110 million in concessional loans to a solar tower and molten salt storage project in Port Augusta, as part of last minute negotiations with the Nick Xenophon Party to pass major tax cuts.
The commitment was announced by finance minister Mathias Cormann as part of a deal with the NXT to approve tax cuts for businesses with revenue of less than $50 million.
Senator Cormann says the Coalition will provide a confessional loan of $110 million in 3 per cent interest rate to an unspecified solar thermal project. He said the government will call for formal proposals via the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corp.
The front runner for the deal is the 110MW solar tower and molten salt storage project proposed by the US company SolarReserve. Other proposals are likely to come from Vast Solar and others.
“We welcome the announcement today from the Senate, and it is critical step in progressing the project – but the key outcome is to obtain a long term power purchase agreement,” said Daniel Thompson, the Australian development manager for SolarReserve.
Earlier, the energy minister Josh Frydenberg announced that the CEFC would invest $80 million in the 113MW Bodangora wind farm near Wellington in NSW.
“This investment in large-scale renewable energy projects such as Bodangora, is part of the Turnbull Government’s technology neutral, non-ideological approach to provide affordable, reliable electricity as we transition to a lower emission future,” he said in a statement.
The $236 million Bodangora wind farm is expected to be operational in the latter half of 2018.
Solar-storage hub proposed for Adelaide
Carnegie teams with Samsung, Lend Lease for battery storage hub http://reneweconomy.com.au/carnegie-teams-with-samsung-lend-lease-for-battery-storage-hub-23948/ By Giles Parkinson on 31 March 2017
In a joint announcement with energy minister Tom Koutsantonis and premier Jay Weatherill in Adelaide on Friday morning, Carnegie CEO Michael Ottaviano said the company has teamed up with Lend Lease Services and South Korea’s Samsung for the proposal.
It proposes to build a 100MW/100MWh lithium-ion battery, using Samsung technology, and wants to do this in Adelaide in a centre that will evolve into a “battery storage” hub, building new battery systems and doing R&D and integration work.
“This is an opportunity to build an industry for the future,” Ottaviano told journalists in Adelaide. “This will be the first 100MW battery, not the last.”
Carnegie’s is just one of a number of proposals for the state government tender, which closed at 12 noon local time on Friday. Others include the $1 billion solar and battery storage project unveiled by Lyon Solar on Thursday, and rival offers from Zen Energy/Greensmith, Tesla, LG Chem, Adelaide-based silicon storage developer 1414 and many more.
Koutsantonis said the tender had elicited an “unprecedented” response with more than 200 downloads from nine different countries. Final numbers will be revealed on Monday. “It has captured international attention for people to see opportunities with our remarkable renewable energy power,” Koutsantonis said. “You can hand around lumps of coal, or you can move forward with new technologies. Storage will become the norm and we will be at the forefront of that.”
Ottaviano says the battery storage hub would be powered by a “multi-megawatt” rooftop solar system – and could employ 300 people to deliver the project, including electricians and engineers from sunset manufacturing industries in South Australia.
He said Carnegie would own the battery storage unit, and use it to trade energy, arbitraging opportunities in the market, and also playing in the FCAS (frequency and ancillary services) market when not being called upon by the government to provide grid support.
But he said such installations would rely on government support until market rules were changed that would level the playing field for battery storage.
“As renewable energy penetration inevitably increases across the country, the need for utility-scale energy storage will grow in lockstep,” Ottaviano said in a later statement.
“The deployment of utility-scale battery systems creates an opportunity for South Australia and Australia to develop a new local industry and export this capability throughout our region.”
Weatherill told journalists that battery storage was exciting because it sourced “free energy” from the wind and the sun, and would create the jobs of the future.
As costs tumble, Australia poised for large-scale solar boom
Australia on cusp of large-scale solar boom as setup costs tumble, experts say, ABC News, PM By Angela Lavoipierre , 30 Mar 17 Large-scale solar looks to be on the cusp of an Australian boom.
The country has quietly had a record-breaking year in the construction of major solar projects, and the trend is predicted to continue.
Seven large-scale solar projects were completed in 2016 and even more will be built over the next 12 months, as rapid advances in technology propel large-scale solar towards price parity with wind power.
Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton said it was “a record year” for large-scale solar, which could soon overtake wind as the cheapest form of renewable energy, thanks to rapid advances in technology.
“Already this year in 2017, we’ve had over a dozen projects committed and now moving onto construction,” he said.
“The costs of large scale solar has halved in just the last few years here in Australia. “We expect over the next couple of years [it] will really reduce the cost to a point that it is the lowest cost form of renewable generation in this country.”
Ivor Frischknecht, who heads the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) — the agency that delivers Federal Government funding for renewable projects — said the boom was approaching sooner than anyone expected.
“A couple of years ago we analysed the market and thought that by the early 2020s we might be able to get there, to be cost competitive with wind,” he said.
“But in fact we’re there already — we’re seeing large scale solar projects happen without any support.”
ARENA said the formation of a domestic solar industry had also brought down costs.
Moree solar farm ‘ground-breaking’
Moree is the site of one of Australia’s newest large-scale solar farms and the fourth largest in the country.
The town of less than 10,000 people in northern New South Wales has perfect conditions for generating solar power, enduring a record 54 consecutive days over 35 degrees Celsius this summer.
The Moree solar farm is an example of the kinds of challenges once faced by large-scale solar in Australia……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/australia-on-cusp-of-large-scale-solar-boom-experts-say/8377226
$1billion battery and solar farm for South Australia’s Riverland
Lyon Group announces $1b battery and solar farm for South Australia’s Riverland, ABC News, By political reporter Nick Harmsen, 30 Mar 17 A $1 billion battery and solar farm will be built at Morgan in South Australia’s Riverland by year’s end in a project the proponents describe as “the world’s biggest”.
The builder, Lyon Group, has already proposed a smaller solar farm and battery storage facility, named Kingfisher, in the state’s north.
Lyon partner David Green said the project was 100 per cent equity financed and construction would begin within months, employing 270 workers.
“Riverland Solar Storage’s 330-megawatt solar generation and 100-megawatt battery storage system will be Australia’s biggest solar farm with 3.4 million solar panels and will also include 1.1 million batteries,” he said.
Mr Green said land had already been secured and grid connection was already well advanced.
Work on Lyon’s 120 megawatt Kingfisher project is slated to begin in September next year……
Lyon to bid for SA battery tender
The Lyon Group has already signalled its intention to bid for a SA Government tender to build a battery storage system with 100-megawatt output. The tender arrangement would give the Government the right to tap the battery storage at times of peak demand, but allow the project owner to sell energy and stability into the market at other times.
An expressions of interest process closes on Friday.
Other companies, including Carnegie, Zen Energy and Tesla, have all suggested they could be interested in bidding…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-30/new-solar-project-announced-for-sa-riverland/8400952
1 This month
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