Construction of Risen Energy (Australia)’s 121 MWdc/100 MWac Yarranlea Solar Farm in Queensland is expected to be completed by October this year.
Situated near Pittsworth, approximately 50 kilometres west of Toowoomba on Queensland’s Darling Downs, the facility will connect to existing Ergon Energy infrastructure; enabling transmission of the solar energy generated into the Middle Ridge Bulk Supply Substation.
The Yarranlea Solar Farm project area is approximately 250ha in area. It incorporates more than 360,000 Risen Energy solar panels ( 360/365W monocrystalline 1500VDC modules) mounted on single axis trackers and SMA inverters.
“The project is currently in the electrical installation phase. This includes the placing and cabling of the container mounted SMA inverters and routing of cables to connect the inverters to the solar farm substation,” said Andrew Owen, Risen Energy Australia’s Renewable Development Manager.
Approximately 110 workers are currently on site and the company says around 65% of workers involved with the construction have been sourced from the Darling Downs area. Once the facility is complete and operational, 3-5 full time workers will be required to maintain the facility.
Risen Energy Australia General Manager Eric Lee says battery storage will be added to the clean power station at some point in the future. At the end of the facility’s useful operating life – which is an expected 30 years – all components will be removed and the land returned to its former use (agriculture).
Yarranlea isn’t Risen’s only large-scale PV project in Australia. In March this year, a groundbreaking ceremony took place for the company’s 132MW (DC) Merredin Solar Farm project in Western Australia. At that point, commissioning and electricity sales were expected to commence in the final quarter of this year.
Risen has previously stated it aims to have 2GW of its own projects in place in Australia over the next couple of years.
As well as on residential/commercial rooftops and at its own PV projects, Risen’s solar panels are in use at another utility-scale project in Australia – Clermont Solar Farm, situated around 100 kilometres north of Emerald in Queensland. According to a RenewEconomy report, Clermont Solar Farm began sending electricity to the grid last week.
China-headquartered Risen Energy was founded in 1986 and has had a presence in the Australian market since 2008. The company has fared pretty well in SQ’s Risen Energy solar panel Australian customer reviews bearing in mind these are comparatively low-cost panels, and the brand is currently listed on SolarQuotes’ trusted solar brands chart.
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That’s actually a really cool photo… For a minute I thought I was looking at an extreme close-up of a tiny bloom of rust developing near the edge of a panel, before realising it was a tree…
What I don’t understand is why they plan to decommission the site after 30 years and return it to agriculture. Why not just upgrade the panels & keep producing power? You’ve got all the infrastructure in place.
The land could be leased and that’s a condition of the lease. It’s also normal to require power stations to remediate the land they’re on. But I presume it’s all negotiable and if they decide they want to repower the facility they’ll be able to work something out. If they own the land it should be pretty easy to do.