Limondale Solar Farm Construction To Start In October

Image: Innogy SE

Germany’s Innogy SE has announced it will commence construction works for the massive Limondale Solar Farm near Balranald in New South Wales next month.

Innogy, which completed acquisition of the project a couple of weeks ago, says preparation works are already underway.

Limondale Solar Farm will be a 349MW facility built in stages, with  full commercial operations expected in mid-2020. The development site is located around 14km south from the town of Balranald and was chosen for its large cleared area and proximity to a Transgrid 220kV substation. Considered a State Significant Development, the project first required approval at a state level, which it gained in September last year.

Construction of the facility will see a peak of between 100-200 employees during construction and up to seven full-time positions during operation.

  “It makes me proud that we can now start with the construction of our first utility-scale PV plant in Australia – one of the continents with the highest solar irradiation per square meter,” said Hans Bünting, COO Renewables at Innogy SE.

Belectric is the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor for the project, as well as the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) service provider. Innogy acquired Belectric last year.

The company says it is exploring additional renewable energy opportunities in Australia including further solar, battery storage and wind projects via its Melbourne-based subsidiary Innogy Renewables Australia.

Limondale was originally an Overland Sun Farming project and was to be 250MW. In February this year, Innogy announced its intention to acquire Limondale, along with Overland’s 115MW Hillston project. Innogy SE says it anticipates the transfer of Hillston will be completed towards the end of this year.

The planned investment involved with both projects is more than AUD $650 million.

“With the acquisition of two of Overland’s Australian solar development projects, Innogy is entering into a strongly growing renewable energy market,” said Uwe Tigges, CEO of Innogy SE earlier this year.

Innogy SE is a subsidiary of the German energy company RWE, which was created in 2016 by splitting the renewable, network and retail businesses of RWE into a separate entity. In March this year, it was announced E.ON will acquire Innogy.

In other recent news from the company, earlier this month Innogy announced construction had officially commenced on the onshore aspects of the Triton Knoll offshore wind farm in Lincolnshire, England. The 860MW project is being managed by Innogy, which is the majority equity shareholder of Triton Knoll (59%), on behalf of partners J-Power (25%) and Kansai Electric Power (16%).