Australia’s oldest solar farm was the country’s best performing in February

The latest monthly rankings of best performing wind and solar farms in Australia has produced some surprises, with the solar sector led by the country’s oldest solar farm and the wind sector by one of the wind farms hardest hit by transmission constraints.

According to data compiled by analysts at Rystad Energy, the Greenough River solar farm in Western Australia was the best performing solar asset in the country in February, with a capacity factor of 37.6 per cent.

The 10MW first stage of the facility was built by First Solar in 2012, using its thin film solar panels, and was recently expanded by another 30MW, this time using solar tracking technology. It appears this addition has helped it to the top of the rankings.

Other top ranking solar farms for the month included the biggest solar farm in W.A., the 100MW Merredin solar farm, and the relatively new Glenrowan West solar farm in Victoria

Among wind farms, the best performing in the latest month was the 200MW Silverton wind farm, a facility built in 2019 that has often been heavily curtailed by transmission constraints from Broken Hill, where it is located, to the rest of the main grid.

Silverton’s performance in February – a capacity factor of 51.9 per cent – topped Western Australian wind farms for the first time in a while, although that state still accounted for five of the country’s top 10 wind farms in the month. (See yellow in table below).

The Warradarge and Badgingarra wind farms in W.A., and the White Rock wind farm in northern NSW, all delivered capacity factors of more than 50 per cent in the month.

Across the country, utility scale solar PV and wind assets generated a total of 3,347 GWh, up from 2,700 GWh in February 2021, a rise of 24 per cent.

At a state level, NSW was the top performing state, generating 967GWh of utility PV and wind generation, followed by Victoria (842 GWh) and South Australia (580 GWh).

Note: This story has been updated to clarify that Greenough River rankings include the stage 2 of the solar farm.