Australia’s biggest wind and solar hybrid plant begins production

Production has begun at what will be the country’s biggest wind and solar hybrid facility when it operates at full capacity.

The Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park in South Australia is a combination of 217MW of wind and 110MW of solar, located not far from the location of the now closed coal fired generator in the same city.

As we reported last month, PAREP owner Iberdrola got the green light from the Australian Energy Market Operator to start production, and the first sign came on Wednesday, with an injection of up to 25MW from the wind component on Thursday.

The facility will gradually work its way through the various “hold points” that allow AEMO to assess the performance of the project before allowing it to move to the next stage. This process can take several months.

The 107MW solar farm component on the hybrid project is understood to be in its final stages of completion, with registration expected to be achieved soon. That will enable the solar farm to also start its progression through hold point testing and full commissioning.

Once fully commissioned, the PAREP facility will help add to South Australia’s growing share of renewables, already at a world leading 64 per cent (just wind and solar) over the past 12 months, and likely to jump sharply in coming years as new links and projects come on line.

Iberdrola this week also announced it has bought the rights to the 1,000MW Mt James wind project in north Queensland, and is about to start work on the 140MW Flyers Creek wind farm in NSW.