Utility-scale PV

Former manufacturing giant establishes a foothold in the promising Australian market, and says it is in talks with developer Biosar about supplying further modules for projects in the nation.

Australia’s first large-scale project to use pumped hydro to store solar generated power, the Kidston facility in north Queensland, has landed more than half a billion dollars in concessional finance from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

On the back of the massive supply deal, the Spanish manufacturer has announced it has crossed the 1 GW threshold for photovoltaic inverter shipments to Australia.

Australia is set to quadruple its utility-scale PV capacity in 2018, with a 2 GW pipeline. The effects of the expansion are now beginning to show, as projects come online. So far just 0.1 MW of the 2018 pipeline are fully operational, but as of July this is going to change.

Arizona’s largest power user has approved a 20-year power contract with a 30 MW solar project at US$2.49¢/kWh (AUD3.27c/kWh), the lowest price for a public solar power contract to date. The deal also involves shutting down a coal plant.

The University of Queensland (UQ) will offset 100% of its electricity needs with renewables by 2020. The milestone will be achieved through existing rootop PV arrays, and a freshly approved 64 MW solar farm near Warwick, in the state’s Southern Downs region.

On the back of a 20 year power-purchase agreement with Total Eren, the global confectionary giant has taken 100% renewable energy pledge for its six Australian factories.

A 45 MW portion of the Bungala solar farm has begun feeding electricity into the grid. The entire first phase of the project – a 137.7 MW PV plant – is expected to be completed in a few months.

With an unprecedented rollout of rooftop solar reaching 1.1 GW and around 700 MW of large-scale renewable energy projects completed and connected to the grid, last year was an important turning point for Australia’s clean energy industry, shows the Clean Energy Council in its latest report. However, seven times bigger capacity of utility-scale projects with financial support or under construction at the year’s end is poised to eclipse 2017.

The 174 MW solar farm coupled with a 100 MWh energy storage facility near Wellington has received a green light from the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment. The project proposal came from First Solar.