RES Group’s long wait for state approval from the Department of Planning & Environment ended earlier this month when the Avonlie Solar Farm project located just outside of Narrandera received development approval. Despite the project’s State Significant Development (SSD) status, it took over a year for the approval to come through.
RES Group believe the farm, which will feature approximately 667,000 solar panels, will have a capacity of up to 200 MW. Additionally, the 550-hectare site will feature some many of energy storage, though specifics on this are not yet known.
The site’s location, 20km south of Narrandera in NSW’s Riverina region, is perfect for a large-scale solar farm not only because of the copious amount of sunlight received by the land, but particularly because of the site’s proximity to the grid transmission network.
Large-scale solar farms have been dogged in recent years by issues relating to connectivity with the grid. Earlier this month NSW Government Minister for Energy and Environment Matthew Kean opened the Clean Energy Summit 2019 with a promise to unleash private investment on the state’s transmission infrastructure, admitting the archaic network is holding back renewable integration.
Avonlie Solar Farm’s proximity to existing infrastructure should ensure it is not similarly dogged by connectivity issues.
Construction on the project will begin in the coming months with an expected operational date in Autumn 2021.
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