German inverter supplier SMA continues has announced a new deal to supply Neoen’s Western Downs Green Power Hub in Queensland, Australia.
Generating 400 MW (AC) through almost 90 SMA skids, Western Downs will be the largest solar project in the country, and one of the biggest PV installations that the company has worked on anywhere in the world.
It will be powered by the SMA MVPS 6000-S-AU, operating at 1500 V (DC). The inverters will be manufactured by SMA in Kassel, Germany, and assembled in Wodonga, in the Australian state of Victoria, with transformer manufacturer Wilson Transformer Co. (WTC).
“This project is a landmark for SMA, it represents our focus on supporting developers like Neoen who are committed to focusing on owning and operating high-quality solar assets,” Joshua Birmingham, project sales director for SMA Australia.
The SMA MVPS 6000-S-AU brings together two Sunny Central 3000-EV inverters, transformers, and medium- and low-voltage switchgears, onto a galvanized base – rather than being fully containerized. Delivered pre-configured on a 40-foot skid, the SMA MVPS electronics is a central inverter solution developed with WTC specifically for Australian utility-scale projects. The two companies teamed in 2018 to develop the Power Skid, an Australia-dedicated turnkey solution available in different architectures, with WTC providing the medium- and low-voltage switchgears – among other components.
Project partners
Plans to build Australia’s largest solar farm were confirmed only weeks ago, after French renewables developer Neoen signed a contract to sell most of the project's output to the Queensland government-owned renewable energy generator, CleanCo. The power purchase agreement will contribute over 30% of the energy required for CleanCo to meet its target of 1 GW of new renewable generation by 2025.
The project, located 22 km south of Chinchilla in southwestern Queensland, will generate energy to power 235,000 Queensland homes, or enough to power every home on the Sunshine Coast. The AU$570 million (US$375 million) investment by Neoen is expected to create up to 400 jobs when construction begins in July. Electricity generation is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2022.
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No one seems to mention it but would be nice to hear about the panel MWdc capacity, i.e., the ILR.
My experience with solar power and electric car in Canada.
This is my personal experience and opinion. I respect other people opinions. Please, respect mine as well.
I focused more on the strong production months – June, July, August, September fooling myself in that way. I knew it will produce over 1 MWh each of those months. It peaked around 1.5 MWh a month. For the electric car we need 1 MWh each month. Of course, the power is produced when we are at work. So it goes back to the grid.
When sending electricity back to the grid we get paid 6 cents / KWh. But when we charge the EV over night we need to pay those 6 cents plus some 15 cents for each KWh in all the various fees (distribution, …).
We spent CAD 30,000 on the solar panel array. And CAD 51,999 on the Hyundai Kona Electric. And CAD 51,000 on a 100 year old house 90 km from the provincial capital.
Our monthly electricity bill went considerably up – close to CAD 400.00. Out of which the electricity itself is CAD 120.00 and the remaining CAD 280.00 are various fees. Every month we get a credit note for the electricity we produce – it was CAD 16.75 in December 2019 and around CAD 60.00 in summer months of 2019.
Now I know that I would be much better off if those CAD 30,000 got invested into 10 KW CHP appliance (Combined Heat and Power), which is just a fancy nickname for a generator running on natural gas. Its piston engine would produce heat for the house and electricity. The electricity would be produced around 3-4 cents per KWh with no distribution fees paid to our utility company.
For any solar panel array a storage battery is a must. Perhaps I will convince myself to provision one in near future.
Hopefully my mistakes can be a lesson for somebody else in this comments forum to avoid the same disappointment.
I believe we still need fossil fuels in the form of natural gas here in Canada. Otherwise we would freeze to death when the temperatures goes to -30 for several weeks, to -20 for several months – having up to 8 cold months and only 4 warm months. We cannot rely on renewables in Canada.