More

    Australia’s largest solar programs

    Array

    The journey to transition Australia’s energy production to renewable sources, it’s impressive just how much work is being done, specifically in the solar farm space.

    There are some massive investments being made in capturing the energy from the sun to power our homes and businesses and the location, size, technology used and largely unknown companies are interesting to analyse.

    Such is the trend of solar investment that 7 out of the largest 8 solar projects in the country were commissioned last year. While 2019 is shaping up to be a good year for solar, there’s not yet a larger project in place than what we seen in 2018.

    Large solar farms are defined as projects over 50MW of capacity, to date, with a majority positioned along the east coast of Australia. There are 4 in NSW, 10 in Queensland (the sunshine state), 1 in SA and 4 in VIC for a total of 19 solar farms. It is interesting to see the states that don’t have large-scale solar, WA, NT and the capital, ACT, the first 2 could be explained by the high cost of transmission between the point of collection and point of use.

    The goal of solar farms is really to capture as much energy for the lowest cost. In that respect we can see a number of companies have very different approaches to the best technology to achieve this.

    Photovoltaic, single axis tracking is by far the most popular. While static mounts are cheaper, mounting the solar panels on stands that rotate to track the sun’s position as it moves, increases the amount of solar collected. That value of that extra power captured more than counteracts the additional cost.

    Now let’s take a look Australia’s biggest solar farms.

    Image credit: ABC News: Carl Saville

    1. Bungala Solar Power Project

    Size: 220MW
    Location: Port Augusta
    Company: Reach Energy
    Type: Polycrystalline photovoltaic, single axis tracking
    State: South Australia
    Commision date: May, 2018

    Image credit: Edify Energy

    2. Daydream Solar Farm

    Size: 168MW
    Location: Whitsundays
    Company: Edify Energy
    Type: Photovoltaic. 168 MWac, 180 MWdc
    State: Queensland
    Commision date: August, 2018
    Households powered: 55,000

    Image credit: Renew Economy

    3. Coleambally Solar Farm

    Size: 150MW
    Location: Murrumbidgee
    Company: Neoen
    Type: Photovoltaic, fixed tilt
    State: New South Wales
    Commision date: September, 2018

    Image credit: rcrtom.com.au

    4. Sun Metals Solar Farm

    Size: 124MW
    Location: Townsville
    Company: Sun Metals
    Type: Thin-film, single-axis tracking
    State: Queensland
    Commision date: May, 2018

    Image credit: Rossriversolarfarm.com.au

    5. Ross River Solar Farm

    Size: 116MW
    Location: Townsville
    Company: ESCO Pacific, Pallsade
    Type: Photovoltaic, single-axis tracking
    State: Queensland
    Commision date: September, 2018

    Image credit: Apa.com.au

    6. Darling Downs Solar Farm

    Size: 110MW
    Location: Western Downs
    Company: APA Group
    Type: Photovoltaic, single-axis tracking
    State: Queensland
    Commision date: May-September, 2018

    Image source: Agl.com.au

    7. Nyngan Solar Farm

    Size: 102MW
    Location: Bogan Shire
    Company: AGL Energy
    Type: CdTe thin-film technology
    State: New South Wales
    Commision date: June, 2015

    Image source: Solar quotes

    8. Clare Solar Farm

    Size: 100MW
    Location: Burdekin Shire
    Company: Fotowatio Renewable Ventures
    Type: Photovoltaic, single axis tracking
    State: Queensland
    Commision date: May, 2018

    So how does Australia’s solar efforts compare with the largest solar farms in the world? While we’re a massive sunbaked continent, there’s other parts of the world that have achieve the economic conditions to invest in solar at a much larger level.

    While Australia tops out at 220MW, Tengger Desert Solar Park in China takes the top spot with a staggering 1,547MW. At more than 7 times Australia’s largest, it really puts our efforts into proportion.

    The reality is that Australia doesn’t feature anywhere on the list of the world’s 50 largest solar farms.

    Jason Cartwright
    Jason Cartwrighthttps://techau.com.au/author/jason/
    Creator of techAU, Jason has spent the dozen+ years covering technology in Australia and around the world. Bringing a background in multimedia and passion for technology to the job, Cartwright delivers detailed product reviews, event coverage and industry news on a daily basis. Disclaimer: Tesla Shareholder from 20/01/2021

    Leave a Reply

    Ads

    Latest posts

    Reviews

    Related articles

    techAU