Going full hybrid: Massive, $2 billion solar and battery proposed at site of newly expanded wind farm

State-owned utility Synergy has unveiled plans to build a $2 billion solar and battery addition to the newly expanded Warradarge wind farm, currently the biggest in Western Australia.

The proposal is for a 500 megawatt (MW) solar facility, plus a 500 MW battery energy storage system, to be built within the boundaries of the wind farm, which has recently added another 30 turbines to take its capacity from 180 MW to 283 MW.

The idea is to tap into existing infrastructure, including access roads, underground cabling and a link to the main transmission line. “The Proposal seeks to integrate the Solar Farm and BESS with the existing Wind Farm, leveraging prior land disturbance as well as established access and electrical infrastructure,” it says.

The project is in the Mid-West region around 200 kms north of Perth, an area rich in wind and solar that already features a number of existing wind and solar farms, some of them co-located such as at Emu Downs.

The area is also the hub of a host of new activity, including what will be the biggest wind farm to begin development in Australia in more than two years, the 470 MW Parron Maam Marang project that reached financial close last week, and the smaller Waddi wind farm that has already begun construction.

The region is already served by a 330 kV transmission line, but the state government has already announced funding for the Clean Energy Link – North, a major transmission upgrade from Perth to Three Springs, just to the north of the site, which is designed to significantly improve the network’s transfer capacity.

The planning document submitted late last month to the local Coorow council says that the variability of solar generation alone makes the inclusion of a BESS a critical component of the proposal, enabling electricity generated during peak solar periods to be stored and dispatched when required.

“The co‑location of a solar farm and BESS supports grid stability, improves system reliability, and enhances the ability of the SWIS (the main grid in W.A.) to integrate high levels of renewables.” The submission says it has not yet decided if the solar-battery hybrid facility will be AC-coupled or DC-coupled.

Solar and battery hybrids have become the standard for new PV projects, with virtually no standalone solar facilities being built because of the negative pricing throughout the day. New wind farms are also now looking to add battery storage to their projects, to help ensure their output is stored for when it is needed most.

Wind, solar and battery hybrids are common in off-grid configurations, but are rarely seen on the main grid. In fact, only one true wind, solar and battery hybrid has been built in Australia, at Kennedy in far-north Queensland.

However, its developer, Windlab, is considering using the same combination at gigawatt-scale projects such as Bungaban, and Spark Renewables is looking to do the same at Dinawan in south-west NSW, and Neoen at Goyder in South Australia.

Synergy says its development arm SynergyRed develop the asset, but it is expectatedthat it will eventually be built, owned and operated by Bright Energy investments, the current owner of the co-located Warradarge wind farm. Bright is 80 per cent owned by Potentia Energy and 20 per cent by Synergy.

The storage duration of the battery was not revealed in the planning document, and is yet to be decided.

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