Gransolar Group’s Dalby hybrid solar+storage project is a wholly inside job

Spanish EPC Gransolar Group, which earlier this year announced plans through its battery division, E22, to develop 13 large-scale batteries across South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, has announced its first hybrid project, the 5 MW Dalby Hybrid Power Plant in Queensland (QLD), consisting of 2.7 MW (DC) of solar and 2.5 MW of storage.

The 2.5 MW/5 MWh QLD hybrid project will be grid connected and supply power to grid service provider Ergon. Gransolar’s hybrid solution is a concerted and tailored approach designed to “provide maximum flexibility with the ability to access the maximum number of market and revenue streams, including arbitrage and FCAS services”, according to a company statement.

With the National Energy Market at the forefront of grid congestion and therefore at the forefront of necessity for grid innovation, companies are now realising that new renewables are perhaps better built already hybridised with battery energy storage.

There is a need, said Carlos López, managing director of Gransolar Group Australia, to “build facilities that already integrate BESS systems; the future of renewables as a source of continuous generation involves hybridisation with storage.”

This is the first hybrid project for Gransolar and the first project in which all four of the group’s member companies are involved. Therefore, not only with Gransolar build the plant and install the energy storage system, it will also do the engineering, supply the solar trackers as well as the integrated monitoring system.

“Our differentiating element is that we are involved in the entire value chain,” said López, “offering solutions that adapt to the needs of each customer and each project. We are working to take on more projects like Dalby’s.”

So if these sorts of hybridised systems are the future of new renewable builds in Australia, will it be that company’s with a footprint across the entire value chain are also the future?

The project is expected to be operational by early 2022 and will generate approximately 50 jobs in the process.