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Tables – large scale renewable energy projects being built, or about to start

Giles Parkinson
15

These tables were put together by the Clean Energy Council to highlight the large scale wind and solar projects already under construction in 2017, and those that are expected to start this year.

Together they make a total of 3,554MW, putting the country well within reach of the 2020 renewable energy target of 33,000GWh, a total that is expected to require between 5,000 and 6,000MW of large scale renewable energy capacity, depending on how much is wind and how much is solar.

These projects include several projects, such as the Hornsdale 2 and 3, and the Kiata wind farms, that were commissioned by the ACT government for its 100 per cent renewable energy target and will be over and above the federal RET.

Ararat wind farm has also been completed, so is not included in these tables although its capacity of 240MW is included in the total for the year.

Table large scale being built table large scale to get FID

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15 responses to “Tables – large scale renewable energy projects being built, or about to start”

  1. George Darroch Avatar
    George Darroch

    Thanks to the person(s) who put this together.

  2. George Darroch Avatar
    George Darroch

    3550MW of nameplate capacity! This is a huge year for large scale renewables.

    1. Lightfoot Avatar
      Lightfoot

      2017 is by far the biggest year we have ever had. Outstanding!
      Why does the Whitsunday Solar farm cost $700,000,000.00 when it is only 57.5 MegaWatt? That cannot be correct.

      1. Gary Rowbottom Avatar
        Gary Rowbottom

        Hi,

        According to an earlier reneweconomy article the Reach Solar 220 MW Bungala project (2 x 110 MW stages) is a $450 million project. It may be Stage 1 is $263 million, I imagine that incorporates costs and work that won’t need to be part of Stage 2, at a semi-educated guess.

  3. DJR96 Avatar
    DJR96

    Who says renewables are insignificant!
    As the saying goes – Rome wasn’t built in a day. And therein is the advantage of renewables too, you can just keep scaling it up wherever it is needed.
    We’re on a roll now that likely has the momentum to continue well past the end of the RET scheme.
    Keep this up and we’re installing capacity faster than legacy generation retires.
    It is possible and is happening!

  4. Climatemonster Avatar
    Climatemonster

    Good to see Oz moving in the right direction at long last.

  5. Mark Diesendorf Avatar
    Mark Diesendorf

    Most of the large wind farms (>100MW) in the first table have a capital cost in the range $2.1-2.3 M/MW, but Hornsdale Stage 2 has $8 M/MW, which cannot be correct.

    1. Jonathan Prendergast Avatar
      Jonathan Prendergast

      It’s the first gold plated wind farm

    2. MikeH Avatar
      MikeH

      According to this 2017 AFR report,

      >The three stages will cost $870 million and have a combined capacity of 309MW.

      So the data above is incorrect. The revised figure would give 2.8 M/MW overall

      Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/wind-costs-fall-as-french-renewable-group-neoen-seals-300m-hornsdale-stage-3-20170301-gunv7z#ixzz4g4PPKVxS

  6. Gnällgubben Avatar
    Gnällgubben

    I’d like to see some significant investment in storage too, then the fate of fossil fuels is definitely sealed

    1. Gary Rowbottom Avatar
      Gary Rowbottom

      Yep, Like Solar Thermal with storage. Hopefully we will see that as the SA Government crawls to a result in its power use tender, a process kicked off 12-11-2015 with its release of an EOI for low carbon generation for its 481 GWh/yr energy use.

  7. Chris Schneider Avatar
    Chris Schneider

    This is great news! It could mean the total Solar and Wind component of renewables exceeds the Hydro supply over a day! Currently Hydro seems to be used to balance out the variability of Wind and Solar. I can imagine a day very soon when during the day Hydro is basically turned off and only comes on to supply the morning and evening peaks! That would be HUGE! Add to that everything else that is happening for electric consumption based storage (batteries and pumped Hydro) and this could be a huge tipping point! It would be interesting to know the Hydro capacity. Combine that with the Gas capacity and that is the current safe level of Renewables, assuming every wind turbine and even solar panel aren’t working, which would never happen with enough diversity and grid planning.

    1. Chris Schneider Avatar
      Chris Schneider

      7800MW of Hydro! Therefore we can continue to expand Wind and solar for this level with out real concern for supply (expect a drought) Might be time for more floating solar! I can’t find that figure for gas though. But given our total required energy supply is around 27GWh it would mean a drastic decrease in coal. So 1/3 of our energy could be supplied by variable renewables without anything happening in storage and with out taking into account the use of gas for trading off renewables in the grid balance. Storage is not our problem by a long shot at the moment. We will need to double of renewables to even touch our variable capacity.

  8. juxx0r Avatar
    juxx0r

    Those Coober Pedy numbers sticks out like a pair of disco balls as a dachshund’s nuts.

  9. Morgan Kurrajong Avatar
    Morgan Kurrajong

    Great article Giles. The space is fast moving so Im looking forward to an update.

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