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Adani’s Whyalla Solar Farm greenlit

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India based energy company Adani have received development approval for a $200 million, 140MW Whyalla solar farm. The farm will consist of PV solar modules and operate on a single axis tracking system. 

Adani’s Whyalla Solar Farm

Whyalla Solar Farm Adani
Whyalla Solar Farm (source: @AdaniAustralia on Twitter)

The solar plant will be located 10km north of Whyalla’s centre, on the Port Lincoln Highway. It will originally generate 100MW and the potential capacity of the solar plant will be up to 140MW. According to AdelaideNow, grid connection will be via the 132kv network between the Whyalla Centra and Cultana substations.

Although the original development application didn’t include any information about battery storage, this is an option that Adani is also investigating. 

No PPA (Power Purchasing Agreement) has been signed yet, but as soon as that is sorted out we will see a starting date for construction of the farm – which is expected to be some time in 2018. The plant should be generating renewable energy by 2019. The construction phase of this solar farm is expected to create 350 jobs and could be “just the tip of the iceberg” for Whyalla, Giles MP Eddie Hughes told news.com.au last year. 

“Since 1998 Whyalla has wanted to become the solar capital,” said Mr Hughes. “It’s the realisation of the dream to have a major proponent come to us.”

Other Whyalla Solar Projects

News of Adani’s solar farm comes off the back of Zen Energy approving a $700m solar, battery and pumped-hydro storage project to power Zen Energy owner Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty OneSteel works in Whyalla. The project is expected to provide 1 gigawatt (1000MW) and also  100MW/100MWh battery storage. Hopefully, this will also provide some help to the real estate market in Whyalla, which has dropped by 21% in 2017 so far. 

Adani also has another $100m solar farm in Moranbah awaiting DA from the Isaac Regional Council. 

 

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Tempus Energy partner with Origin in SA

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UK based clean-tech startup Tempus Energy is expanding into Australia, according to a press release that notes they will be partnering with Origin Energy to pilot ‘flexible energy demand’ in South Australia over the next few months. Their software uses machine learning to maximise savings for customers – analysing data from modern BMS (Building Management Systems), battery storage devices (e.g. the Tesla Powerwall 2), and more – in order to minimise the amount of money spent on electricity. 

South Australia will now have an opportunity to try this software platform out – no word yet on how it will be rolled out in conjunction with Origin but it appears it’ll be a new business model for Tempus. They previously ran a UK supply business which was closed down last year in favour of focusing on countries with “transparent and open wholesale markets”. Will be interesting to see how the offer ends up for the end-user. 

Tempus Energy
Sara Bell of Tempus Energy at “Free Electrons” Startup Accelerator (source: tempusenergy.com)

Tempus Energy in Australia

Tempus, founded by current CEO Sara Bell in 2012, has 11 employees (according to their LinkedIn company profile) and is active in the UK, Australia, and Sweden. According to their pitch from the ‘Free Electrons Pitch Off’, Tempus’ offering is a ‘machine learning software that forecasts the closing electricity market price before market closure. The software processes data in real time and combines market forecasting with the ability to predict electricity usage and understand how flexible assets perform in different conditions in order to minimise electricity cost and maximise use of renewable generation’.

Sara Bell was quoted as saying: “Tempus Energy is delighted to be partnering with a forward-thinking energy company like Origin. We are looking forward to helping them explore the benefits and challenges of new flexible energy demand solutions and how this can contribute towards the transition to a lower carbon, stable energy system that can deliver tangible benefits to customers.

You can view Sara Bell’s elevator pitch for Tempus Energy below – we’ll follow their partnership with Origin closely and be sure to update you as soon as there’s news on how you can take advantage of their service! 

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Hornsdale Wind Farm – Solar Powerpack Party!

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has attended a Powerpack unveiling at Noeon Hornsdale wind farm in Jamestown, South Australia. The Tesla South Australia battery partnership has been the talk of the nation since it was announced back in July. The lithium-ion battery is now 50% complete and will be built within 100 days of 29 September.

Tesla and the Hornsdale Wind Farm

The 129MWh lithium ion battery is being built to prevent load-shedding blackouts that have plagued South Australia in recent years, most notably in September 2016 when almost the entire state was without power at a point. These blackouts continued over summer as the government scrambled to work on energy security. It will also help

Tesla’s battery seeks to repair some of the energy security woes South Australia had to deal with – it will also help stabilise the grid while generators are started up (in the event of network issues / unexpected weather events).

The Hornsdale Wind Farm signed a grid connection agreement with Electranet on September 29 and some of the Powerpack units were already operational. As per the initial agreement between Musk and the South Australian government, Tesla now has 100 days to complete the task or it’s free – so the clock is ticking! 

If you want to learn more about the Tesla Powerpack in Australia please follow the link where we discuss Tesla’s commercial/industrial grade lithium-ion battery storage offering in more detail. 

Tesla Powerpack Celebration 29.09.2017

Hornsdale Wind Farm Tesla Powerpack
Hornsdale Wind Farm –
Tesla Powerpack Halfway Party (source: ABC.net.au via Tesla)

The party was held to celebrate the halfway point in the construction of their lithium-ion battery – Tesla invited politicians, local landowners and Tesla customers to a marquee overlooking the battery array, which is coming along nicely. “To have that [construction] done in two months … you can’t remodel your kitchen in that period of time,” Musk told the group with a broad smile on his face. The event was powered entirely by Powerpack batteries – it’s really exciting to follow this process and we can’t wait for 100 days to be up and see the results this has on the South Australian energy security crisis. 

Youtube user ‘Video2045’ has kindly uploaded a video of Elon Musk’s speech at the Jonestown ‘Tesla Powerpack Celebration’ – you can view it by clicking below!

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Bungala Solar Farm receives final approval.

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The 275MW Bungala Solar Farm, which is already under construction, has received final approval. Bought by Italian energy company Enel, the $400m solar farm built in conjunction with the Dutch Infrastructure Fund is expected to be ready in early 2019.

Bungala Solar Farm

Bungala Solar Farm
Bungala Solar Farm (site: commbank.com.au)

The farm will see 860,000 solar panels built on 585 hectares of Bungala Aboriginal Corporation land and, according to Enel, will create around 200 jobs during the construction period. We previously reported on the Bungala project back in April where it was to be built by Reach Solar and the agreement to sell it to Enel Green Energy and the Dutch Infrastructure Fund had been inked – they were just waiting on a financial close when has been reached this week. 

Head of Enel Green Power, Antonio Cammisecra, spoke about the Bungala Solar Project to news.com.au and said that it would be Enel’s initial foray into the Australian renewable energy market – with the goal to become a “key player” in the industry. “The project marks the first step of our growth strategy in a country which boasts such an abundant resource base and whose renewable capacity is expected to surge in the next years,” Cammisecra said.

The farm is to be ‘battery storage ready’, and, according to RenewEconomy, will most likely be the first major Australian solar farm to enter Australia’s FCAS (Frequency Control and Ancillary Services) market – as they’ll be utilising SMA inverters to provide voltage control for the grid. 

The Bungala solar farm has signed a PPA with Origin Energy – earlier this year Frank Calabria, the chief of Origin, discussed how important ‘big solar’ is for our future and how we need to work on the transition to renewables: “Energy markets around the world are in transition and Australia is no different,” Calabria said. “We must make sure our energy supply is secure, as Australian homes and businesses rely on it. At the same time, we must make sure energy continues to be affordable as we move Australia towards a cleaner supply.”  

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AGL Virtual Power Plant Upgrade?

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AGL have confirmed that their trial of networked home storage batteries has been halted temporarily as they manage unknown variables with their ‘Virtual Power Plant’ – which was labelled by AGL as the ‘largest project of its kind in the world’ earlier this year.

Virtual Power Plant

AGL Virtual Power Plant
AGL Virtual Power Plant (source: @AndyVesey_AGL)

The scheme went live in March at West Lakes in Adelaide and has see hundreds of households’ solar and battery storage linked together to form a 5MW ‘virtual solar power station’. The scheme cost $20m and ARENA (the Australian Renewable Energy Agency) kicked in $5m of that to back the project. As such the cost to the consumer was heavily subsidised and interest has been very high within the test area. 

At the time AGL MD and CEO Andy Vesey said “Our South Australian VPP demonstration is a practical example of the new energy future,” – noting that AGL planned their ‘VPP’ will deliver benefits by increasing grid stability (albeit just for the test group for the time being). The batteries installed were by Sunverge, a producer of intelligent energy storage and advanced AC-coupled storage systems. They use a proprietary virtual power plant software, and in this situation were unique as all the batteries could be remotely operated by AGL. Some customers paid extra for the AC coupled storage systems so they could use them during a blackout. 

There have, however, been potential hiccups with the Virtual Power Plant this week as AGL wrote to waitlisted customers to advise them they won’t receive any of the current Sunverge batteries, and that they plan to utilise “next-generation battery technology into our next phase of installations”. 

The ABC asked AGL about the issues with their VPP and they dodged the question about how many batteries being replaced (and what their upgrade plan is), but a spokesman did say that “Lessons and customer feedback from the initial phase of the project are being used to shape subsequent phases and we want to ensure that all customers have an opportunity to opt in to the next generation offering,”

We’ll keep you updated to see what they’re going to offer for the next phase of their Virtual Power Plant – another exciting step for energy storage technology for South Australia.

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