FRV’s Goonumbla solar farm lands deal with Snowy Hydro

Spanish renewable energy developer FRV says it will build its sixth solar project in Australia after revealing that its Goonumbla solar project in NSW was one of the eight winning bids in the tender held by Snowy Hydro.

The government owned Snowy Hydro announced last week that it had contracted 880MW of wind and solar capacity from eight different projects, at a “game-changing” price of less than $70/MWh for “firm” renewables – significantly below the current price of baseload power.

Despite the loud-hailers about the deal, Snowy did not identify the winning bids, and they are slowly emerging as the developers make their own announcements – although some companies are taking the bizarre approach of claiming the contract but not identifying the winning project.

FRV – which stands for Fotowatio Renewable Ventures – says the 67.8MW (AC) Goonumbla Solar Farm, located about 10kms west of Parkes, will begin construction in April, 2019, and will start operations in June 2020.

It will produce about 195,000 MWh of clean energy per year, which suggests a capacity factor of around 32 per cent.

“With this agreement we want to continue leading the production of renewable energy in Australia, a country that is showing a great commitment to boost renewable energy projects,” said FRV CEO Daniel Sagi-Vela.

“The Goonumbla Solar Farm will enable us to develop our expansion plans in the country, while contributing to a more sustainable future in Australia”.

Snowy said it was flooded by more than 17000MW of projects in its renewable energy tender – the largest held in Australia.

Four solar farms won 15-year contracts – FRV’s Goonumbla, Clenergy’s 115MW Metz solar farm, and two unidentified projects owned by LightsourceBT and Total Eren.

The four winning wind farms include Tilt’s Dundonnel wind farm, Macquarie/RES-Group’s Murra Warra wind farm, an unidentified portfolio owned by CWP Renewables, and an as-yet undisclosed project.

This is FRV´s sixth project in the country following the Winton Solar Farm, (85 MW AC) in Victoria, Royalla (20 MW AC) in the ACT, Moree (56 MW AC) in NSW (pictured above) and Clare (100 MW AC) and Lilyvale (100MW AC) in Queensland.