Another giga-scale wind, solar and battery project jostles for a spot in new renewable zone

A 1.5GW wind, solar and storage project is being proposed for southern New South Wales, including 220 wind turbines, up to 300MW of solar PV and a 500MW/500MWh battery energy storage system.

The huge Yanco Delta Wind Farm is being proposed by Virya Energy, the Australian arm of German renewables outfit Energiequelle, which is being run from its Melbourne base by Steve Crowe and Karl-heniz Krampe.

Virya has a site picked out north west of Jerilderie, just inside of the recently declared South West Renewable Energy Zone, where it would connect to Project EnergyConnect via the proposed Dinawan Terminal Station.

The project website says the site was chosen for its strong and complementary wind and solar resources, its location in the REZ close to new transmission infrastructure, and its low population density and minimal land-use clashes.

So far, the $2-3 billion project is in the very early stages, including working up a Scoping Report, to be followed by an Environmental Impact Statement and community engagement processes.

Virya says that – all going well with approvals of the state significant project – it hopes to begin construction in late 2024 or early 2025 and have the wind farm operational after 2025.

All eyes on the South-West REZ

The Yanco project emerges at the same time as another huge hybrid renewables proposal also targeting this part of the South West REZ, from the solar and wind development arm of network company, Spark Infrastructure.

The Spark Renewables project, unveiled in August, proposes to develop an up to 1GW wind farm in the Wentworth Shire, 16km north-east of Buronga, alongside a containerised battery energy storage system.

Spark Renewables is also proposing to develop the Dinawan Energy Hub – a massive 2.5GW hyrbid wind, solar and battery storage project – also planned for the South-West REZ.

The South West REZ is the third renewable energy zone to be formally declared by the NSW government – just two weeks ago – following the Central-West Orana zone, which has now moved into the formal tender process, and the New England REZ.

The South-West REZ has generated enormous interest from aspiring developers of wind, solar and storage projects, with the state government revealing in February that a registration of interest process received more than 34GW of proposals – more than 10 times its likely capacity.

“There were 49 registrations totalling over 34 gigawatts from potential generation and storage projects – thirteen times the intended capacity for the South-West REZ, which will be no less than 2.5 gigawatts,” James Hay, the CEO of state government entity Energy Corp, said at the time.