Australian renewables developer Edify Energy has submitted plans for a 300MWac solar-plus-storage site in Victoria to Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
The Nowingi Solar Power Station is being proposed 47km to the south of Mildura, on the Victorian side of the Murray River, near the border with New South Wales.
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The project will feature a 300MWac solar PV power plant developed alongside an up to 300MW/2,400MWh 8-hour duration battery energy storage system (BESS).
It will span an area of 637 hectares within the Mildura Rural City Council Local Government Area’s farming zone, which is currently managed for agricultural practices.
According to documents submitted as part of the EPBC Act application, the BESS will connect to the National Electricity Market (NEM) via an existing overhead 220kV transmission line owned and operated by Ausnet, which runs from Red Cliffs to Horsham.
Construction on the Nowingi Solar Power Station is expected to take around 18 months. At its peak, the project will generate approximately 250 full-time jobs. Once operational, the project will employ around five permanent positions to operate and maintain the solar PV power plant.
The site aims to ensure agricultural practices can continue through the use of agrivoltaics, or ‘agriPV’. Agrivoltaics has been incorporated in several of Edify’s other Australian projects, notably the 80MW Peninsula Solar Farm and the 250MW Muskerry Solar Power Station in Victoria.
Zen Energy bags consent for 100MW solar-plus-storage project
In concurrent news, Zen Energy has seen a 100MW solar-plus-storage project in Queensland approved by the Australian government, which could feature a BESS between 4 and 8 hours in duration.
The approval comes via the EPBC Act. Zen Energy launched the application on behalf of its joint venture with Taiwan’s HD Renewable Energy, ZEBRE.
Australia’s minister for the environment, Murray Watt, noted that the approval process for the project took just 17 days.
“This was made possible because the 267-hectare project site was designed so its environmental impacts were minimised,” Watt added.
“It will be located on predominantly cleared land, so there’s an option for agricultural use on the site, including sheep grazing through the solar array, demonstrating once again that there’s ways for renewables and agriculture to work together.”
The co-located BESS will be a 200MW system. However, it will be between 4-8 hours in duration, meaning it could be anywhere between 800MWh and 1,600MWh. It will be co-located with a 100MW solar PV power plant.
It will be located 7km southeast of Woolooga, a rural town in the Gympie Region of Queensland.
These articles first appeared on our sister site Energy-Storage.news as the items ‘Edify Energy proposes 2,400MWh solar-plus-storage site in Australia’ and ‘Australia: Zen Energy sees solar-plus-storage site with up to 8-hour BESS approved in 17 days’.
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