RES Australia are seeking government approval for two solar farms around Mayrung, near the border of NSW and Victoria. They’ll both connect to the TransGrid 132kV – the grid for Mayrung area. The first farm, ‘Currawarra’, will be the biggest solar farm in NSW.
About the Projects
RES currently have two projects they are working on and will submit to the cancel later this year for developmental approval of the following:
Project 1: ‘Currawarra’ is a solar PV plant with 175MW of renewable energy. There will be 500,000 solar panels involved in the project and it will significantly dwarf the current largest operational solar farm in New South Wales – AGL Energy‘s 102MW Nyngan solar plant.
Project 2: ‘Tarleigh Park’ will be a smaller version of Currawarra – the plan is to generate up to 90MW with 250,000 solar panels. Tarleigh Park is approximately 20km south east of Denilquin.
Both plants will feed directly to the TransGrid.
About RES Australia
According to the project manager of Currawarra and Tarleigh Park for RES, Mike Whitbread, they are hoping to have the applications completed and submitted by September. If the applications are accepted then they plan to start creation of the projects in 2018. Currawarra will take approximately 1.5 years and the construction of Tarleigh Park is expected to be 9-12 months.
Whitbread was quoted in ShepNews.com.au about discussing the impact the projects will have on the region, especially during the construction phase:
“We recently completed the Ararat Wind Farm in Victoria and basically our workers filled the town’s accommodation during the construction phase. The workers stayed in town, ate in town and used the local facilities,” Mr Whitbread said.
RES Australia, as a subsidiary of the RES group in the UK, are already seasoned veterans in the renewable energy field, managing over 2GW in renewable energy projects over the world. They have recently completed wind farm projects in Taralga in NSW, and Ararat / Murra Warra in Victoria.
