Huge Lincoln Gap wind farm now fully operational, but not the battery

The Singapore-based Nexif Energy says its first major Australian renewable asset – the much delayed 212MW Lincoln Gap wind farm – has finally reached full commercial operation.

The milestone has been reached at the same time as Nexif – which is backed by Denham Capital – closed a $397 million refinancing of its Australian portfolio, which also includes the 154MW Snapper Point gas fired power station that is also about to be commissioned.

The first stage of the Lincoln Gap wind farm had to be re-thought after the initial turbine supplier Senvion suffered financial problems, forcing Nexif to turn to Vestas to complete the project.

A 10MW/10MWh battery, built by Fluence way back in 2019, also got caught up in technical issues – at least partly because of those turbine changes – and is still awaiting finalisation of its connection agreement.

When it is added, it will be the fourth big battery in the state’s grid, joining the much larger Hornsdale Power Reserve, Lake Bonney and Dalrymple North facilities. Lincoln Gap, however, will operate “behind the meter” in a similar way to the Bulgana battery in Victoria.

Nexif is now looking at moving to build the next 252MW stage of the Lincoln Gap wind project, which will take the total capacity to 474MW, including the battery.

Lincoln Gap is one of a number of new renewable energy projects that have sprung up in and around Port Augusta, formerly the centre of the state’s coal fired generation which closed for good in 2016.

The other projects are the 317MW Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park, the country’s largest wind and solar hybrid project which recently began its first production, and the 220MW Bungala solar farm, the biggest solar facility in the state.

The refinancing agreement was struck with a consortium comprising KfW, SMBC and Westpac, and includes a term loan, working capital and letter of credit facilities which consolidates the three existing separate debt facilities into a single arrangement.

They replace the existing finance providers, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Westbourne and Investec.

Snapper Point will support the provisions of electricity off-take contracts from the Lincoln Gap Wind Farm and will feed into the national electricity market.

Nexif founder and Co-CEO Matthew Bartley said the projects would offer baseload style contracts from renewable energy generated from our Lincoln Gap Wind Farm project backed by dispatchable generation at Snapper Point.

“With the construction complete of the current portfolio, our focus is now on implementing our plan to double the wind farm and 10MW battery project from its existing 222MW to 474MW through the addition of a further 252MW of wind capacity through a planned expansion,” he said.

Co-CEO Surender Singh described the financing deal as a “one-of-a-kind combination of interrelated projects comprised of renewable energy generation supported by battery storage and fast response gas turbines.”

The final arrangement of the first stage features 35 Senvion and 24 Vestas 3.6MW wind turbines, and the Advancion battery storage system supplied by Fluence.

The battery storage facility will work behind the meter, allowing the project to more reliably integrate renewable energy into the National Electricity Market.

The project has long term agreements with ERM Power for large scale generation certificates and an “innovative” long term off take agreement for the electricity with Snowy Hydro.