South Australia’s biggest renewables hub lands a second power offtake deal

A South Australia wind farm that will form part of the state’s largest renewable project, Neoen’s flagship Goyder Renewables Zone, has notched up its second energy off-take deal, this time a 10-year power purchase agreement with Flow Power.

Neoen said on Tuesday that the deal with Flow, an energy retailer to commercial and industrial customers, was for 40MW of output from the 412MW Goyder South Stage 1 wind farm, which is currently under construction near Burra in the state’s mid north region.

The 10-year PPA will see Flow Power buy close to 10% of the generation capacity of the Goyder South Stage 1 wind farm, to on-sell to its South Australian C&I electricity users.

The PPA with Flow Power follows an earlier deal struck between Neoen and the ACT government for 100MW of the wind farm’s output, which it is using to help meet its 100% renewable energy target.

The energy off-take deals are an important show of confidence in the massive Goyder project, which has development approval for 1200MW of wind, 600MW of solar, and 900MW (maybe two hours storage) of battery storage capacity.

Xavier Barbaro, Neoen’s chair and CEO, said the signing of a second PPA for Goyder South demonstrated the ability to secure multiple offtake agreements within one large-scale asset.

“It underlines once again the competitiveness of our energy, in South Australia and in Australia as a whole,” Barbaro said.

“Goyder South is not only an extremely competitive project: it also unlocks exceptional regional economic and local community outcomes,” added Neoen Australia managing director Louis de Sambucy.

Sambucy said the company was happy to contract with a retailer whose business model was focused on delivering competitively priced renewable energy to a wide range of Australian businesses.

Flow Power has for years now used its business model to underpin the development of renewable energy projects around Australia, including the Ararat and Kiamal wind farms in Victoria, the Sapphire wind farm in NSW and the Lakeland wind farm in Queensland.

Last year, the company made its first move as a renewable gen-tailer, after connecting two small solar farms to the grid in South Australia, the company’s first owned and operated renewable generation projects.

“Flow Power is proud to be supporting Neoen’s Goyder South Stage 1,” said CEO Matthew van der Linden in a statement on Tuesday.

“This PPA represents a significant contribution to Flow Power’s renewable energy portfolio and will enable us to continue providing Australian energy users access to leading clean energy projects.

Neoen says operations at the Goyder South Stage 1 wind farm, which will have a total of 75 wind turbines, are expected to commence in 2024.

The company says construction of the project has created more than 400 construction jobs and 12 full time permanent positions, and will share substantial ongoing economic benefits with the local community and Traditional Owners, the Ngadjuri.

Neoen, meanwhile, is rapidly establishing itself as a major player in Australia’s renewable energy market, particularly with its growing expertise in large-scale battery energy storage system deployment.

The company this week posted a lift in earnings of 39 per cent to €175.0 million in the first half of 2022, a result largely attributable to the operations of its big batteries – particularly in Australia.

As RenewEconomy reported, earnings (EBITDA) from Neoen’s storage assets – mostly the Victoria Big Battery, Hornsdale in South Australia, and smaller batteries in Australia, Europe and Latin America – nearly trebled in the first half of calendar year to €28.2 million, up from €11.1 million in the first six months of 2021.

The Australian storage assets accounted for nearly all of that profit – €25.1 million, up from €10 million in the same period a year earlier.