Sunraysia solar farm.
The 200MW Sunraysia solar farm in south-west New South Wales has finally been completed and is operating at up to full capacity, although a legal dispute around who should shoulder the cost of the delays continues.
Sunraysia was one of the worst affected of the connection and commissioning delays that have plagued so many wind and solar projects in Australia over the last couple of years.
It was originally expected to be connected to the grid in late 2019, but only achieved this in late 2020 and has taken another year and more to complete the commissioning process.
Last year, its lead contractor, the ASX-listed Decmil revealed it had incurred a near $10 million write down from the project, and also flagged legal disputes between it and owners John Laing and Maoneng, and with the inverter supplier Schneider.
See also: Lawyers’ picnic, and $47m at play, as Sunraysia solar farm faces further delays
Decmil said last year that it had been agreed by the various parties that legal proceedings would be put on hold until the project was complete and had worked through its “hold point” testing. That was expected to be finished in late October, but has now finally been achieved.
“Decmil … is pleased to announce it has achieved substantial completion of the company’s EPC contract for the Sunraysia Solar Farm, following receipt of Substantial Completion Certificate from the client,” it said in an ASX release issued late last Friday.
“Achieving substantial completion is a significant milestone as we near the completion of Decmil’s business turn-around plan,” the company said.
“The transition to performing the Operations and Maintenance contract aligns perfectly with the transition in our overall business strategy from turn- around to returning to recurring revenue and maintenance contracts.”
Decmil was one of a number of listed contracting companies that leaped into opportunities from the boom in wind and solar projects, only to be burned by the experience, particularly the delays in connections and commissioning that triggered either “liquidated damages” or legal disputes.
RCR Tomlinson collapsed under the weight of its solar farm contract problems, and was liquidated, while others such as Decmil quickly left the EPC market, and decided to focus only on less risky “balance of plant” contracts, such as the road building contract it has for the new Ryan Corner wind farm in Victoria.
Update: Maoneng CEO Morris Zhou said via email: “Sunraysia Solar Farm has been a challenging project, nevertheless everyone that has worked endlessly on the project has showed the utmost professionalism.
“I can’t comment on the legal dispute, but what I can say is all stakeholders on the matter are working hard in resolving the issue.”
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