The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has granted US independent power producer (IPP) BrightNight approval to connect its Mortlake Energy Hub, which includes solar and storage facilities, to the Victoria grid.
The project is BrightNight’s first hybrid renewable power project in Australia, and consists of a 360MW solar farm alongside a 300MW battery energy storage system (BESS), which will account for more than 1% of the state’s total electricity consumption. The company plans to begin construction at the project in 2025.
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“Australia’s increasing energy demand, alongside that of the broader region, presents vast opportunities for us to provide our cutting-edge renewable energy solutions to drive the adoption of clean energy,” said Jerome Ortiz, BrightNight APAC CEO.
The latest figures from AEMO support this assessment, with the market operator noting that grid-scale solar capacity in the second quarter of this year was 132MW higher than the operating capacity in the same quarter of 2023. This is to say nothing of Australia’s well-documented commitment to residential solar; earlier this year, the Victorian government allocated US$2.7 million (A$4 million) in financing for seven new projects to install rooftop solar systems and heat pumps across the state.
Projects such as these will help Victoria meet its renewable power generation targets, which include the goal of renewable power accounting for 40% of the state’s electricity generation share by 2025. Victoria is well on track to meet this target – the share of renewable power in the state’s energy mix has increased from 12.2% in 2013-14 to 37.8% in 2022-23 – and currently has over 1GW of utility-scale solar capacity in operation, with more than 5.3GW of capacity approved and a further 190MW of capacity currently under construction.
The Mortlake project will also help meet the state’s energy storage goals, with the government aiming to install 6.3GW of energy storage capacity by 2035. Planning documents submitted by BrightNight to the Victorian government note that the Mortlake project will meet up to 11% of the state’s 2030 storage capacity target, and up to 5% of the state’s 2035 storage capacity target.
Across Australia, state governments are looking to remove boundaries to greater adoption of renewable power in general, and solar in particular. This week, Western Australia announced plans to underwrite 6.5TWh of new wind and solar output, and last week, the Tasmanian government removed a “cumbersome” parliamentary process that prevented state-owned utility Hydro Tasmania from developing large-scale renewable energy projects.
