The notification period for Neoen’s proposed Goyder South Hybrid Renewable Energy Facility in South Australia’s Mid-North commenced yesterday.
The scale of the project is mind-boggling, incorporating:
- A wind farm consisting of up to 163 turbines with a collective capacity of up to 1200MW
- A solar farm across two sites of up to 600MW capacity
- A lithium-ion battery based energy storage facility with a capacity of up to 900MW/1,800MWh
Additional infrastructure includes substations, access tracks, underground cabling, transmission lines, and construction, operations and maintenance compounds.
The project area covers approximately 30,000 hectares of ranges and plains between the Barrier Highway and the Goyder Highway, starting around 27 kilometres from the south and south-west of Burra to around 5 kilometres north of Robertstown. The panels, turbines and other equipment will only take up a fraction of that area. For example, the bifacial solar panels used in the project would occupy around 3,000 hectares and controlled sheep grazing by land owners will be able to continue in the solar area to assist with vegetation management.
At this point, Neoen envisions constructing Goyder South Hybrid Renewable Energy Facility in three stages, with each stage comprising 400MW of wind capacity, 200MW of solar power capacity and 300MW/600MWh of battery storage capacity. The company expects the entire project will take around 12 years to complete from the date of approval.
At its full size, Goyder South Hybrid Renewable Energy Facility would generate more than 4,800,000 MWh of electricity annually (enough to power the equivalent of around a million homes), and avoid 2,112,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
Community Benefits
In addition to local jobs generated by construction, operations and maintenance and the flow-on effects for local business from activity in the area, Neoen would commit to providing up to $600,000 each year to the local community for life of the project, which is expected to be 25-30 years. Payments under the Community Benefits Scheme (CBS) would be based on the stage of operations and adjusted according to inflation.
Neoen is also proposing to create the “Worlds End Gorge Reserve” alongside the proposed Goyder South project, boosting tourism and helping to preserve/enhance the Worlds End Gorge area.
The development application package for Goyder South Hybrid Renewable Energy Facility can be viewed here. The notification period ends on September 18, 2020.
Headquartered in France, Neoen has a solid track record on renewables, both overseas and here in Australia. The company says it has brought more than 1GW of solar, wind and storage to construction and operation in Australia since 2012. One of its high profile projects is the Hornsdale Power Reserve (better known as the Tesla Big Battery), which is situated adjacent to Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown in South Australia.
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This is exciting. When completed, its likely that there will be times where the SA power grid is 100% renewable.
There are times now when SA is more than 100% renewables, i.e. there is some gas, but gas generation is lower than exports. With this project completed it would happen a lot more often though.
Their figures suggest they are planning to use giant 7+ megawatt wind turbines. There is nothing close to that size in Australia because they are so cumbersome to build. But it’s a long term project and GE is now making 4.8 MW onshore wind turbines, so maybe land based wind turbines will get 50%+ larger.
I have no idea how they’ll get them to the location. My suggestion of running current through the turbine and flying them into position was rejected for being “impractical” as well as “completely insane”.