Startup Graphite Energy has begun construction on the first stage of its renewable agriculture facility in central New South Wales, named the Lake Sustainable Energy Precinct. The $29 million facility is a collaboration between Graphite Energy and Cygnus Ag, which appears to be a local Lake Cargelligo agriculture company, and includes other stakeholders from industry, research and government.
Graphite Energy doesn’t appear to have been on the scene for very long, but according to the company it has developed a proprietary thermal energy storage system for the decarbonisation of industrial and manufacturing operations. It is not clear yet how exactly this technology will work within the facility, but presumably it will store solar energy.
Of the facility, to date Graphite Energy has noted the masterplan includes 5 MW of solar to be combined with “multiple forms of integrated energy storage,” including batteries, thermal energy storage for heating, cooling and drying, and hydrogen for diesel substitution.
The project aims to be a replicable pilot for Australia and abroad to demonstrate how renewable energy and agriculture can coexist, “using industry advancements to enable renewable energy sources without forgoing farmland,” Graphite Energy says.
Image: Graphite Energy
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.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.