Goonumbla solar farm – deal with Snowy Hydro

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

The Goonumbla Solar Farm will supply energy to Snowy Hydro under a deal announced today.

Goonumbla Solar Farm

FRV (Fotowatio Renewable Ventures), a large-scale solar developer based in Spain, already has five solar projects in Australia and will now start work on the Goonumbla Solar Farm.

The 68MW solar farm will commence construction next April, and it’s expected that the project will be fully up and running by June 2020. It’ll produce around 195,000MWh, according to RenewEconomy.

The wind and solar energy will be used to support Snowy’s pumped hydro storage generators who were previously pulling electricity from the grid to pump the water (to the tune of 2800 MWh, according to the Sydney Morning Herald).

“This agreement will put significant pressure on wholesale electricity prices which will lead to downward pressure on retail – household – energy prices,” Snowy Hydro chief executive Paul Broad said.

CEO of FRV, Daniel Sangi-Vela, discussed the project with the media:

“With this agreement we want to continue leading the production of renewable energy in Australia, a country that is showing a great commitment to boost renewable energy projects,” Mr. Sangi-Vela said.

“The Goonumbla Solar Farm will enable us to develop our expansion plans in the country, while contributing to a more sustainable future in Australia” he continued.

This is an exciting development for FRV, who have a proven track record in the space and are also responsible for the Lilyvale Solar Farm, Clare Solar Farm, Moree Solar Farm, Royalla Solar Farm, and the Winton Solar Farm.

Snowy Hydro’s Electricity Tender

Goonumbla Solar Farm and Snowy Hydro (source: snowyhydro.com.au)

According to Snowy Hydro, their tender involved over 17,000MW of projects, with four solar farms and four wind farms winning contracts to supply Snowy Hydro Limited – an electricity generation and retailing company who own, manage and maintain the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric scheme located in the Kosciuszko National Park.

Solar Farms:

Goonumbla Solar Farm (FRV)
Metz Solar Farm (Clenergy)
Unnamed Total Eren Farm
Unnamed Lightsource BP Farm.

Wind Farms:

Dundonnel wind farm (Tilt)
Murra Warra wind farm (Macquarie and RES Group)
Unnamed CWP Renewables Wind Farm
Unknown!

According to Snowy Hydro, these eight projects total 888MW and will generate around 2.8 terawatt hours of energy annually. If you’re interested, you can read more on the official website by clicking here!

Kiamal solar project launched, may add 194MW more.

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

The official launch of the Kiamal solar project was held in Victoria on Wednesday. The 265MW (DC) solar plant has plans to double its output by adding another 194MW in the future at some point.

Kiamal solar project

The Kiamal solar project is owned and being run by Total Eren (formerly two separate companies), a renewable energy company based in France whose $300m investment in the project has raised the ire of the Australian Energy Market Operator, who have implemented tough new conditioned for those wanting to install wind and solar in Victoria’s ‘full’ grid (click here to read a great article from the AFR about it). They commented that Total Eren had ‘misjudged’ the system strength requirements and said there could be an issue with adding a farm this size to the noth-west Victorian grid.

Luckily the team at Total Eren (or Total-Eren, depending on how French you are) have agreed to add an expensive ‘synchronous condenser’ to help stabilise the grid. AFR report that the cost is estimated to be in the ‘tens of millions of dollars’ so this is certainly quite the olive branch.

An official statement from the company noted that the company had acquiesced to AEMO’s requests “…in order to facilitate a timely connection … substantially strengthening the grid in the region and making it possible to connect even more renewables in north-west Victoria”.

The team are now looking into adding 380MWh of energy storage and 194MWh of solar in a second or third stage, as per executive vice-president Fabienne Demol.

NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin spoke at the Financial Review National Energy Summit and explained the situation a little further:

“There are plenty of people who want to advance new renewable energy generation options here in NSW, but transmission is a huge constraint and that is why we are ahead of the game, out there with our own strategy, carefully reviewing all the work AEMO has done in the ISP to make sure it works for NSW consumers ,but whatever we do we will be doing it in a way to make sure it doesn’t lead to upward pressure on prices because that is our critical focus and that is the assurance that we will give.”

Click here to learn more about the PPA Kiamal solar farm signed with Flow Power earlier this year.

They’ve also signed Alinta Energy and Mars Australia after losing Meridian Energy earlier this year due to construction delays. The Kiamal solar farm will be completed by the middle of 2019.

Kiamal solar farm signs a PPA with Flow Power.

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

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 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.

The latest Australian solar news and deals for the industrial, commercial and residential sectors.

Total Eren

Goonumbla solar farm – deal with Snowy Hydro