As large-scale solar power plants go, Kerta Solar Farm is a little ‘un – but it has a very interesting feature.
Green Gold Energy (GGE) announced yesterday its 4.95MW Kerta Solar Farm project near Mypolonga, South Australia has been energised; with full commissioning “coming soon”.
Mypolonga is a small town situated in the heart of the Murraylands, around 90 kilometres from Adelaide. The project site is approximately 5 kilometres as the crow flies from the outskirts of the town.
Kerta Solar Farm has been in the pipeline for a while – a development application was lodged with Murray Bridge Council back in 2018 and approved the following year. Construction officially commenced on 26 April 2022.
It appears the solar panels used for the project were supplied by Astronergy and the inverters by Sungrow. Kerta Solar Farm is expected to generate 9,303 MWh of clean electricity a year.
The “Love Heart” Solar Farm
About that interesting feature. The following is a satellite photo of the site back in late 2018 (Source: Google Earth).
And here’s the Kerta Solar Farm site as it is today (Source: GGE):
The curious shape of the vegetated area aside, the fact it has been worked around rather than cleared is fantastic. There’s not much in the way of bush in the general area where the project is located as much of the land is used for cropping, so the preservation of this chunk is pretty important.
GGE’s First Solar + Battery Project Progresses
In other recent news from Green Gold Energy, a couple of weeks ago the company hosted an opening ceremony for its Loveday Solar & BESS Project in South Australia’s Berri Barmera local government area.
This is GGE’s first solar power + energy storage project, the initial stage of which will be 2MW of PV and a 5.5MWh battery system. It’s expected the first stage will be completed end of this year, and the second stage will be a 3MW PV expansion.
It looks like Sungrow inverters are to be used for Loveday and the panels will be from Longi. It’s not clear who the battery supplier will be.
Green Gold Energy has a bunch of projects in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales at various stages; ranging from just 1MW up to more than 150MW capacity – but the firm has a special focus on smaller sites. Some companies choose this path as it can provide a greater range of site selection and cut down on red tape and complexities associated with bigger solar energy projects.
GGE says it has commissioned more than 20 projects in South Australia alone. It’s always on the lookout for suitable parcels of land for lease or sale in SA, VIC and NSW.
“Not every parcel of land is viable for a Green Gold solar farm,” says GGE. ” But if you have a piece of land adjacent to a three-phase powerline, there may well be an opportunity to develop one.”
The company is looking for relatively flat land with minimal native vegetation – but as has been demonstrated with Kerta, “minimal” may be somewhat flexible.
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Interested to know your thoughts on a 4.95 MW of panels producing 9.303 MW of energy per annum in this location.
Is the calculation as simple as; 9,303 / 4.95 / 365 = 5.15 hours of 100% production each day.
Is this a conservative, realistic or aggressive assumption they have used? It seems reasonably realistic to a casual observer.