Profits from wind and solar farms fall, as APA keeps wary eye on Copperstring

Gas infrastructure and power generation company APA has revealed earnings from its three main wind and solar assets fell slightly in the last year, and it is worried about the threat of the proposed Copperstring project in north Queensland on its Mt Isa generation and pipeline business.

APA is basically a gas supply and generation company with a few add ons, such as some transmission lines, some off-grid power projects, two combined wind and solar farms in Western Australia (Emu Downs and Badgingarra), the Darling Downs solar farm in Queensland and the North Brown Hill wind farm in South Australia.

In all it has around 342MW of wind capacity and 149MW of solar capacity, and is looking at a new solar farm near Mt Isa in north western Queensland. And it also has 440MW of gas fired generation, mostly at Diamantina in Mt Isa.

The latest results show steady but varying returns from its various power generation assets.

Of note in the latest results is the 110MW Darling Downs solar farm, which returns a lower profit of $13.6 million in the last financial year, down from $15.7 million, although there is no explanation given.

The Badgingarra wind (130MW) and solar (17.5MW) complex returned $32.1 million (down from $33.5 million), while the smaller Emu Downs wind (80MW) and solar (20MW) complex across the road returned $26.7 million, up from $24.8 million.

The off-grid Gruyere power station supplying the gold mine of the same name returned $7.9 million, and APA is about to spend $38 million turning that into a hybrid facility with the addition of solar and battery storage.

Its biggest gas generator, the 242MW Diamantina facility, which serves customers in Mt Isa, increased its earnings to $94.3 million, possibly thanks to the closure of the aged Mica Creek gas generator and APA is considering building a solar farm, Mica, to reduce both costs and emissions.

That solar farm will be facing competition from other renewable proposals, including a Vast Solar project to install a 50MW hybrid project combining solar thermal, battery storage and gas, but it is also facing competition from the proposed $1.5 billion Copperstring project.

CEO Rob Wheals boasted that APA had beaten off the first iteration of Copperstring, and said he hoped that the second version – a $1.5 billion, 1,100km transmission line that could link Mt Isa to national grid near the east coast and unlock vast renewable and mining projects – would go through the appropriate regulatory reviews.

Overall, APA’s results showed a slight 1.3 per cent fall in EBITDA to $1.6 billion (m mostly through its various transmission businesses), while net profit slumped to just $3.7 million after a previously announced $249.3 million write down of its Orbost gas facilities and $148.0 million in finance costs.