Two new solar farms show signs of powering up on NSW grid

Two newly built large-scale solar farms have started sending small amounts of power to the grid this week in the south-west of New South Wales.

In the Riverina region, the 120MW (dc) Hillston solar farm started showing small spurts of output on the NEM, as spotted by the eagle eye of Paul McArdle from Watt Clarity.

The beginnings of power generation come just a couple of months after the project’s developer, AMP Power, revealed that it had secured project financing.

AMP Power – the Australian operating company of global developer Amp Energy – took over development Hillston after acquiring the project from its original developer, Overland Sun Farming, in late-2020.

The 120MW solar farm is expected to generate approximately 235,000GWh annually once it is generating at full capacity, the equivalent electricity consumption of 48,000 households.

McArdle also alerted RenewEconomy to some early movement on the NEM from the 90MW Sebastapol solar farm, also in south-west NSW, just south of the former gold-rush town of Temora.

That project is being developed by Saudi-owned Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) in partnership with Canada-based Omers Infrastructure, to which it sold a 49% stake in its Australian business last month, to help fast-track and expand its multi-gigawatt pipeline of solar and big battery projects across Australia.

The Sebastapol project falls into the South-West Renewable Energy Zone, one of at least five renewable energy zones planned by the NSW Coalition government to replace its ageing coal fleet.

Just last week the state government opened the South-West REZ to registrations of interest from developers of large-scale solar and wind generation, as well as of load, storage and network infrastructure.

See also: Large Scale Solar Farm Map of Australia