Major and small solar power farm projects keep on spreading across South Australia
Big solar farm projects in South Australia are being increasingly paired with battery storage.
The beams of South Australian solar energy farm projects – either under way or proposed – continued to spread in 2017-18.
A 100MW solar-power battery-ready Tailem Solar project by Equis Energy at Tailem Bend will serve customers of Snowy Hydro, the fourth-biggest retailer in the national electricity market. It will produce enough energy to power 41,600 homes from 2019 and an extra 11MW solar plan is being planned.
Tilt Renewables says the Snowtown site of its 44MW solar farm, to accompany a wind farm, has potential for 300MW of solar.
Smaller farms such as at Peterborough (4.9MW by Renew Power), Port Pirie (6MW, Renew Power) and Whyalla (6MW, SSE) are filling out the South Australian solar scene alongside bigger projects including Port Augusta region’s 150MW Aurora solar tower and molten salt storage (150MW), Bungala (220MW, Enel Green; Dutch Infrastructure Fund), Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park (500Mw, DP Energy); Whyalla’s Cultana (280MW, SIMEC ZEN) and Adani Renewables (140MW); and Crystal Brook Energy Park (150MW, Neoen).
Lyon Group’s $700 million Riverland Solar Storage's 330MW near Cadell – promoted as Australia’s biggest – would have 3.4 million solar panels. Lyon is also building the smaller Kingfisher solar farm (100MW) at Roxby Downs.
Energy Developments is building a hybrid power station at Coober Pedy. It received $18.5 million from the federal government's Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to start the project for the outback community to be solely powered by solar, wind and diesel energy.
