South Australia

Distributed rooftop electricity generation means that many more parties have a stake in rule changes and amended standards for equipment than when a few coal-fired plants ruled the NEM. The South Australian Liberal Government seems to have eschewed consultation with overriding new rules that could hurt many small solar businesses and shake the trust of solar households.

The South Australian Government has announced a $9 million investment towards the transition of Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands from diesel reliance to the self-reliance of solar and energy storage. The contract is good news for one of the most continuously culturally fecund regions in the country.

Neoen’s proposed Goyder South Hybrid Renewable Energy project is so vast that analogy does it a disservice. The French developer has commenced the project’s notification period with the submission of its Development Application, giving us the first real opportunity to begin to quantify its sheer enormity. 1200 MW of wind, 600 MW of solar, and 900 MW/1,800 MWh of battery storage.

SA Water’s great solar splash of 2020 continues with the completion of one installation on Eyre Peninsula and the beginning of another, much larger installation, at the Happy Valley Reservoir.

Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve has gone to work in the first half of 2020, virtually tripling the French renewables developer’s storage revenue on comparative 2019 levels. However, this growth was largely caused by a one-off event, and a slower Q2 highlights the need for FCAS policy renewal. Neoen’s Australian solar revenues could also achieve little more than consistency thanks to poor conditions.

SA Water’s highly ambitious $300 million solar uptake is proving a golden goose as a partnership with Succession Ecology to revegetate almost a tonne of native seedlings under large-scale solar arrays proves a win-win. The ground-mounted modules mean native vegetation can return to formerly agricultural land, and the native scrub itself protects PV panels from soiling.

Testing is currently underway at the  Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, recently expanded to 150MW/193.5MWh. With the added capability to provide grid inertia, owner Neoen reports that it will support the grid and reduce curtailment affecting its wind farm assets in the state. pv magazine Australia spoke to Romain Desrousseaux – the company’s deputy CEO and head of international development – about the expansion.

Adelaide-based renewable and microgrid energy solutions firm AZZO is taking advantage of its strong Australian root system to expand into the U.S. market. 

Despite unprecedented economy-wide impacts brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, SA Water’s planned $300 million solar and energy splash in 2020 has managed to stay on track. Not only do the utility’s ambitions for a zero energy cost future remain within reach, but the utility is already planning more solar.

From today, Adelaide’s council-owned properties will be run entirely on renewable energy as part of a power purchase agreement inked with Flow Power.