German-owned Australian renewables outfit Wirsol Energy, is set to begin construction of a fifth utility-scale solar farm in Australia, in this case, the 110MW Wemen Sun Farm in central Victoria.
Wirsol says it has acquired the solar farm – including signed grid-connection agreements with Powercor Australia – from Overland Sun Farming and UK-based group Island Green Power.
The solar plant, which is said to be located “relatively close to Mildura” will occupy an area of around 770 acres and is scheduled to be connected to the grid in mid-2018, Wirsol said in a statement on Thursday.
The company arrived on the scene in Australia in March, backed by a record of delivering more than 1GW of solar projects in Europe, and quickly forged a partnership with new Australian player Renew Estate with plans to co-develop a 1GW plus project pipeline, including battery storage-ready projects, by 2020.
At that time, Wirsol had acquired three new large-scale solar projects in Australia, totalling 198MW, and in May set up an office in Sydney, as home base for its development plans.
“By the end of the year we will have five solar parks in construction in Queensland and Victoria with a total solar generation capacity of circa 400MW,” Wirsol Energy managing director Mark Hogan said in comments on Thursday.
All of those projects, Hogan added, were scheduled to be connected to the grid by mid-2018.
“We have already secured for WIRSOL additional projects totalling circa 670MW, with the aim of reaching our target-providing 1 gigawatt peak of solar energy by 2020,” he said.
Wirral managing director, Dr Peter Vest, said the Australian market played an “exceedingly important role” in the company’s international growth strategy.
“In coming years, we will be making a significant contribution to the expansion of renewables and setting up important power production facilities with our solar parks.
“The new park is a further decisive step on our path as one of the market leaders in Australia. So we will be realising this project speedily, while also aiming to take advantage of further development opportunities,” he said.
