Photon chooses NSW for its first ever solar and battery project

Photon Energy will embark on its first big solar and battery build after buying up the 9.8MW/10MWh Boggabri project in New South Wales for an undisclosed price – and from an undisclosed vendor.

Currently in the pre-construction phase, the Boggabri solar and storage project is located near the town of the same name, roughly 500km north-west of Sydney.

Planned to extend over 22 hectares of greenfield land, the project will consist of more than 16,500 bifacial solar modules mounted on single-axis trackers.

Construction on Boggabri is expected to get under way towards the middle of 2023, with the completed project expected to generate around 16.4GWh of renewable energy a year. It will be sold on the energy market on a merchant basis.

Netherlands-based Photon – which has plans to roll out more than 500MW of PV generation capacity in Australia before the end of 2024 – says it hopes to use the Boggabri project as a prototype for the rollout of similar projects across its European markets.

“This transaction marks a significant milestone as Photon Energy Group’s first utility scale solar and battery storage project,” said Michael Gartner, CTO of Photon Group and managing director of Photon Energy Australia.

A growing portfolio

With offices across Europe and in Australia, Photon has built and commissioned solar power plants amounting to more than 120MW and operates a portfolio of power plants with a combined capacity of 91.9MW.

A further 900MW of projects are in various stages of development, including the 300MW/3.6GWh RayGen Solar Storage Project in Australia.

Photon bought a minority shareholding in Melbourne-based solar thermal outfit RayGen Resources in 2020.

Along with the small stake in the company – roughly 9 per cent – Photon agreed to act as project developer and EPC contractor for future projects.