Australian thermal energy storage company 1414 Degrees has ordered 5B’s Maverick prefabricated solar system for a 70MW solar PV plant at its Aurora Energy Precinct in South Australia.
The plant is the first solar phase at Aurora, near Port Augusta. 1414 Degrees is developing the site to supply firmed renewable energy to the National Electricity Market (NEM) and directly to data centres and other large energy users.
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1414 Degrees informed the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on 22 October that it had executed a purchase order for systems covering 42 hectares. Neither company has disclosed the value of the order or a delivery schedule, and installation remains subject to final technical and commercial arrangements and project financing.
The supplier is 5B. The Australian company pre-assembles solar modules, cabling, and connections onto frames in its factory, tests them, and then ships them to the site, where they are unfolded for installation. The units for Aurora will be built at 5B’s Adelaide facility.
Each Maverick array holds up to 90 modules in a concertina shape at a 10-degree tilt. The system has mostly been used at remote mining sites, including Bellevue Gold’s off-grid mine in Western Australia, where 528 arrays form part of a hybrid power system that ran on 100% renewable energy for 101 consecutive hours in late 2025.
1414 Degrees said the compact layout fits more solar capacity per hectare than conventional designs.
Executive chairman Kevin Moriarty said this would allow the company to “accommodate considerably more solar capacity within the available land, supporting staged expansion alongside storage, connection infrastructure and customer demand.”
Aurora targets data centre demand near Port Augusta
The 42-hectare deployment sits within an approved 200-hectare solar footprint. 1414 Degrees estimates that the Maverick layout could accommodate more than 300MW across that area, subject to detailed design and any required changes to approvals, and puts the indicative solar potential of the 16km² precinct at around 2GW.
The company took full ownership of Aurora after completing the acquisition of Vast Solar Aurora, announced on 21 October.
1414 Degrees is best known for its silicon-based thermal energy storage technology and first became involved at the site in 2019, when it bought the company holding Aurora’s Crown lease.
The 70MW solar plant forms part of Aurora’s Stage 1 alongside an approved 140MW/280MWh battery storage system.
The battery storage project has cleared technical requirements set by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), and negotiations on transmission access for a proposed 275kV connection are under way.
A separate 33kV connection is being pursued to support earlier data centre development and electric vehicle (EV) charging. In July, 1414 Degrees signed a heads of agreement with an unnamed Australian data centre operator to develop up to 1GW of AI data centre infrastructure at Aurora.
The company has not named a buyer for the solar plant’s output. Moriarty said it is “progressing power purchase agreements, infrastructure partnerships and financing for project delivery.”
For 5B, the order adds to Australian demand for a product that has received public funding. The company became the first recipient of the federal government’s Solar Sunshot Program in May 2025, securing up to AU$46 million (US$30 million) from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to make at least 200MW of Maverick units in Adelaide over three years.
Two months later, 5B was awarded AU$2.5 million, the largest share for a solar company in a New South Wales clean technology grant round, to support further development of the system.
