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Berri Solar Farm to be sold by the Riverland Council

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The $25m Berri Solar Farm is going to be sold by the Riverland council for a firm to take over the development due to a customer pulling out of a PPA (Power Purchasing Agreement).

Berri Solar Farm to be sold by the Riverland Council

Chief Executive of Berri Barmera, Karyn Burton, said the catalyst for the decision to sell the Berri solar farm was due to a major client pulling out of a Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA) due to being sold to another company. 

The farm was approved by the Riverland Regional Development Assessment Panel back in 2017 but construction work hasn’t commenced yet. The council also won a $5 million grant as part of the State Local Government Infrastructure Partnership for the build.

“That was in the mix until June, when they advised (the) council they were going to seek opportunities elsewhere,” Ms Burton said.

“They’d been taken over by a global group and they were looking at their energy needs on a global basis.”

Ms Burton continued to discuss the way the government would like to look at the 

“We’ll sell it as a shovel-ready project,” Ms Burton said.

“Councils are quite risk adverse – they won’t risk going into the market where prices for power fluctuate, not giving us that assurance that we’d cover that as a stand-alone business.

“Whereas there are other solar players out there would be able to do that.”

Mayor Peter Hunt said “despite putting in our best effort to deliver a great project for Council, Accolade Wines and the Community, the timing and justification to continue with the project was simply not right in the end. Accolade Wines was bought by new owners in 2018 and in terms of energy procurement and use, they are considering a number of options. We needed an answer and in this case they made it clear that they could not commit further to the project. The upside is we have fielded several enquiries to buy the project including lease rights to the old Racecourse site. We have expert advice that the project has strong commercial value and that is why we have decided to call for expressions of interest from parties seeking to buy the intellectual property and development rights.”

The council has called for expressions of interest in parties interested in buying the project, until September 27.

Read the article on the Berri Barmera Council website ‘Solar Farm Project to be Sold‘ if you’d like to learn more about the next steps for the Berri Solar Farm. 

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Coles Solar Power – Supermarket signs commercial solar PPA.

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Coles solar power – the giant supermarket company has signed a power purchasing agreement (PPA) with global renewable power generation company Metka EGN. Another huge step for commercial solar and retail solar. Let’s read more about it.

Coles Solar Power

The goal is to buy more than 70% of the energy generated by three solar power plants. The plants will be bnuilt and operated by Metka EGN in Wagga Wagga, Corowa, and Junee in New South Wales – this represents 10% of the company’s entire national electricity usage! Metka EGN are a London based EPC contractor working as a subsidiary of Greek company Mytilineos Holdings S.A. According to PV Magazine, construction of 169MW will commence by EOY and project development is at an ‘advanced stage’. 

Coles Group CEO Steven Cain discussed the move and Coles’ goal to be the most sustainable supermarket in Australia:

“Coles has been a cornerstone of Australian retail for more than 100 years, and ensuring the sustainability of our business is essential to success in our second century,” he said.

“We are thrilled that with this agreement, Coles can make a significant contribution to the growth of renewable energy supply in Australia, as well as to the communities we serve.” Mr. Cain continued.

Thinus Keeve, the Coles Chief Property and Export Officer, had some comments about the Coles solar power scheme – noting that it’s the first Australian retailer to commit to buying renewable energy through a PPA.

Metka/Coles’ solar plants will supply over 220 gigawatt hours of electricity to the national grid. This will result in the displacement of over 180,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. According to the media release this is also the equivalent of the annual emissions of 83,000 cars.

To read the media release entitled ‘Coles agreement secures three new solar power plants’ on the Coles website please click here.

What will Woolworths do to compete with this? Watch this space…

Greenpeace Australia Pacific Senior Campaigner, Lindsay Soutar spoke on the issue:

“Some of the world’s biggest companies, including supermarket chains Walmart and Tesco, have already made the commitment to 100 per cent renewable.

“We look forward to seeing Woolworths make similar commitments,” she said.

 

 

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Walgett Solar Farm to supply 50% of UTS solar

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The University of Technology of Sydney (UTS) has signed a PPA with the Walgett Solar Farm which will cover 50% of its energy usage.

Walgett Solar Farm

The $40m Walgett Solar Farm was approved by the NSW government last year – it will eventually output 32MW and is now reaching the next stage of its project lifecycle.

The farm is owned fully by Epuron, who will be able to commence construction on the project after signing this PPA with UTS.

“For our renewable projects to be able to attract finance and get built, it’s crucial to find suitable partners to become committed customers and provide certainty,” Epuron Director Martin Poole told PV Magazine.

“With the UTS commitment to purchase our clean energy output, the Walgett Solar Farm can move ahead and we look forward to commencing construction in the coming months.” Mr Poole continued.

The project is expected to be built in two stages with the first stage outputting around 15MW.

The Walgett Solar Farm will generate approximately 63,000MWh p.a. once complete – enough to power almost 10,000 homes in New South Wales. 

UTS Solar

Walgett Solar Farm
Walgett Solar Farm PPA will help power UTS (source: newsroom.uts.edu.au)

This is the third PPA UTS have signed to add to its renewable portfolio – their main goal, as we wrote last year, is to completely offset their energy usage with renewable energy via a $1.3b ‘City Campus Master Plan’.

“We are committed to finding sustainable solutions to reduce our environmental impact,” UTS Vice-Chancellor Attila Brungs said. “But we don’t just want to create improvement for ourselves, we want to change whole systems to enable others to also improve their sustainability. UTS has spent the last couple of years researching and creating an effective energy model to help reduce emissions while also supporting the continued growth of the renewable energy sector.”

They’ve installed six solar systems on rooftops at the UTS campus and, by 2020/21, are hoping to reduce their emissions 30% on 2007 levels. 

In other university solar news, the University of Newcastle is doing great things with printed solar cells.

 

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UNSW’s Martin Green wins Global Energy Prize

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Sydney professor Martin Green from UNSW has beaten out Tesla Musk to win the $820,000 Global Energy Prize for his work in the field of photovoltaics. Green will share the prize with Russian scientist Sergey Alekseenko, who is an expert in the field of thermal power engineering.

Martin Green and the Global Energy Prize

Martin Green of UNSW
Martin Green of UNSW (source: Wikipedia)

Professor Green is Director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at UNSW. According to the ABC he’s a leading specialist in both mono and polycrystalline ilicone sole cells, having invented the PERC solar cell (PERC cells represent just under a quarter of the world’s silicon cell manufacturing capacity (as of end of 2017)).

We’ve written plenty of articles about UNSW solar – they’re involved in general solar power research, have launched the SunSPoT solar potential tool, and they have also recently signed a 15-year corporate PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with Maoneng Australia and Origin Energy to become 100% solar powered, thanks to Maoneng‘s Sunraysia solar plant.

In 1989, Professor Green and his team were responsible for the solar cells in the first photovoltaic system. In 2014 he was able to double 1989’s energy conversion efficiency of 20% to 40%. 

UNSW President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Jacobs told the ABC that Professor Green had “delivered truly transformational outcomes in renewable energy for more than three decades”.

“Martin is a highly deserving recipient of this global prize and we warmly congratulate him,” he said.

“His fundamental and applied research has transformed the global energy sector and will continue to produce major economic and social benefits, both in Australia and worldwide.” Professor Jacobs continued. 

Professor Green said receiving the award was “a great honour”.

“The efficiency of solar modules is an area whose progress has been faster than many experts expected, and this is good news,” he said.

“We need to maintain the pace of research in Australia, not only to keep our international lead, but also to benefit society by providing a cheap, low carbon source of electricity.”

This is a fantastic reward for one of Australia’s solar stalwarts and we salute Professor Green for his ongoing work with solar power technology.

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Kiamal solar farm signs a PPA with Flow Power.

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The 200MW Kiamal solar farm located near Ouyen in Western Victoria has signed a PPA for 25% of its output (50MW) – they’ll sell this power to Flow Power who will then offer it to their business clients along with power generated from the Ararat wind farm.

Kiamal solar farm

Kiamal Solar Farm - Flow Power
Kiamal Solar Farm – Flow Power (source: flowpower.com.au)

Kiamal solar farm also signed a deal with Total Eren, as CEO of Flow Power Matthew van der Linden sounded excited about when interviewed: 

“It’s really cheap,” van der Linden told RenewEconomy. “It’s well below the rates out in the market.”

“Because we have got a long term agreement with a large scale project and obviously they can offer a very competitive price around that.”

Total Eren will be responsible for construction of the as yet unbuilt solar farm – this will be the first Australian investment from a JV combining Total Eren and a renewable energy developer.  The farm will include more than 700,000 PV panels over almost 500 hectares of space, using single axis tracking. It also has approval from Mildura council for a 100MW/380MWh battery storage facility, according to Michael Vawser of Total Eren.

Another 50MW of the power was contracted to Mars Australia last week – allowing them to run their entire business (including six factories) on 100% renewable energy. Commercial solar continues to come along in leaps and bounds.

Lastly, Kiamal also signed a contract with energy retailer PowerShop (which is owned by Meridian Energy, New Zealand’s biggest utility company):

“This agreement secures our solar output for Victoria and we are also in final negotiations with projects for additional wind output in Victoria,” van der Linden said. “New South Wales, South Australia, and Queensland should follow soon after, completing our first phase of projects and seeing us out for the year.”

The Kiamal solar farm will begin over the next 12 weeks and it’s estimated it’ll take around 12 months to reach completion. If you’d like to read more about the project you can see some more detailed information by clicking here. 

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