Lakeland solar and storage facility. Supplied.
The listed renewable energy and storage developer MPower says it has already doubled its money – at least on paper – on the Lakeland solar and battery project that it bought last year.
Lakeland, which features 10.8MW solar farm and a 1.4MWac/5.3MWh lithium-ion battery storage facility was built in 2017 and was one of the first solar and battery storage projects on Australia’s main grid.
MPower says an independent valuation of the project puts its worth at $12.7 million – delivering a gain of $6.1 million – after it stripped $1 million in annual operating costs from the project, with the help of management software from Evergen.
“In the first 12 months of operation under MPower’s control, the project has generated approximately 18GWh of clean energy and earned revenues of approximately $1.7 million,” the company said.
All of its output is contracted to Origin Energy under a long-term Power Purchase Agreement that lasts until 2030. The revenue number and the output suggests a contract price of around $94/MWh.
MPower hopes to roll out more similarly-sized solar and battery projects in the coming year, starting with a project at Narromine, and is also on the lookout for acquisitions like Lakeland.
It has a number of projects in NSW and South Australia, and recently bought a “shovel ready” project at Faraday in Victoria.
“An uplift (from Lakeland) of this magnitude is a testament to the value that MPower can create in a short period of time by leveraging our technical know-how and financial expertise around clean energy projects,” CEO Nathan Wise said in a statement.
“2023 has proven to be a transformational year for MPower and we have achieved a great deal. Our focus now turns to capitalising on the milestones achieved in the year as they provide a very solid foundation to accelerate growth in the current financial year and beyond.
“Our primary focus is rolling out our portfolio of ~5MW renewable energy and battery storage projects with Narromine earmarked as the first of a number of sites.”
MPower is due to release its full results at the end of the month but says it expects to report revenues of $4.5 million and an operating profit of up to $4 million.
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