Goldwind announced Wednesday that the White Rock Solar Farm in northern New South Wales, Australia, has reached financial close.
White Rock Solar Farm will be a 20MW PV power plant located next to the northern end of White Rock Wind Farm, 18 km west of Glen Innes. The project is a solar-wind hybrid system that is expected to generate around 44,000 MWh of electricity in its first year of operation — enough to supply the equivalent of approximately 7,200 average NSW homes.
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Laura Jeffrey, development manager for the project, said: “The award of a large-scale solar competitive grant by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has led to White Rock Solar Farm achieving financial close. The ARENA large scale solar initiative has been successful in stimulating strong competition and innovation among Australian solar projects.”
Developing wind and solar projects in close proximity offers numerous benefits — such as complementary energy generation patterns and lower environmental impacts and project costs.
Jeffrey added: “The opportunity to share wind farm infrastructure maximises the use of available facilities without requiring construction of additional facilities elsewhere, this is estimated to unlock over (US$3.6 million) of savings.”
Construction is planned to start in July 2017, with a completion date set for January 2018. The main engineering, procurement and construction contract has been awarded to UGL, a member of the CIMIC Group.