Big solar powers up as another NSW PV project reaches full generating capacity

New South Wales can add another large-scale PV project to its list of completed and fully operational solar farms, with the news that the 115MW Metz solar farm has achieved commercial status and is generating at 100 per cent capacity.

Fotowatio Renewable Ventures Australia said on Tuesday that the project, which has been powering up since December of 2021 and first sent power to the grid in March, is now up and running at full capacity from its location in the NSW Northern Tablelands.

The project, which has the capacity to meet the power demand of 40,000 New South Wales households, secured a power purchase agreement with Snowy Hydro back in 2018 and reached full financial close in December 2020.

It joins FRV Australia’s almost 800MW of operational solar farms around Australia, across nine projects, including Moree (70MW) and Goonumbla (89MW) in NSW, the Winton solar farm (100MW) in Victoria and Lilyvale solar farm (126MW) in Queensland.

Saudi-owned Fotowatio Renewable Ventures last year sold a major stake in its Australian subsidiary, bringing Canada-based Omers Infrastructure on board to help fast-track and expand its multi-gigawatt pipeline of solar and big battery projects across Australia.

FRV, which is owned by Saudi Arabia’s Abdul Latif Jameel Energy, said at the time that the deal – which gave Omers a 49% interest in FRV’s Australian portfolio – would accelerate its position as a leader in Australian renewables and its expansion into new technologies.

FRV said this week that its operating portfolio is now valued at $1billion and its development pipeline has roughly 2.7GW of solar PV projects and around 1.3GWh of battery energy storage systems across Australia.

“This is the fourth project that the company delivered in NSW and another key milestone for the energy transformation which is ongoing in the country and for the state ahead of the retirement of coal power stations in the coming years,” said FRV Australia CEO, Carlo Frigerio.

Fady Jameel, the deputy president and vice chair of Abdul Latif Jameel said projects like Metz served as a strong example of the benefits of working together and combining skills and expertise towards greater climate resilience and economic development.

The EPC contractor for the Metz solar farm was Beon Energy Solutions. FRV says the project created more than 100 jobs during construction, with some jobs ongoing to perform asset management and operational maintenance.