April’s top performing solar farms

Share

Analysis from Rystad has named the top performing solar farms in April, with Western Australia’s Greenough River 1 and Merredin Solar Farm coming in second and third behind Queensland’s 50 MW Kidston Solar Project.

In terms of Kidston, which is owned by Genex Power and located in the mid north of Queensland, its AC capacity factor increased 26.4% compared to last year. The Kidston Solar One Project is an integral generator for the Kidston pumped hydro project.

Growing slightly less at 25.5% AC capacity factor was the 10MW Greenough River 1, owned by Bright Energy Investments (a joint venture between DIF Infrastructure, Synergy and Cbus Super).

Similarly, the 100 MW AC Merredin Solar Farm, which was last year bought by Sun Energy from Risen, saw its capacity factor increase by 25.4%.

The analysis came from Rystad’s senior renewables analyst Dave Dixon, who noted that overall April 2022 ended with all Australian utility PV and wind assets generating 2,895 GWh, “up from 2345 GWh (+23%) in April 2021,” Dixon said on LinkedIn.

At a state level, New South Wales was the top performing state, generating 820 GWh from utility solar and wind, Dixon said. Victoria came in second with 713 GWh, and South Australia third with 511 GWh. 

In terms of wind, the top utility assets were mostly in Western Australia and Victoria, with WA taking out four of the top seven spots. 

“The best performing utility wind assets for the month were Goldwind’s / Nebras Power QSC Stockyard Hill 1 wind farm (48.4% CF) in Victoria, followed by APA Group’s Badgingarra (44.5% CF) and Infrastructure Capital Group’s Mumbida wind farm (43.5% CF) both located in Western Australia,” Dixon noted.

He also pointed out, as has been widely covered in the media, that April was the highest month of wholesale prices for all states bar Tasmania on Rystad’s records, dating back to 2011.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.