Australia's initial energy scale solar farm is currently four times larger

• Australia's first utility scale solar farm, the 10MW Greenough River solar project near Geraldton in Western Australia, is now running at 4 times its initial capacity as the completing touches are put on a long-awaited development.

Bright Energy, a financial investment vehicle had by state utility Synergy, together with Dutch Infrastructure Partners and also industry incredibly fund CBus, announced this week-- in addition to the official opening of its 180MW Warradarge wind farm-- that the Greenough River solar expansion is greatly total.

Greenough River was the very first energy scale solar farm to be integrated in Australia, as well as opened up in 2012, supplying power to the neighborhood desalination plant.

The 2nd stage-- likewise using First Solar slim film panels (Series 4 on this event), but solitary axis monitoring (Nextracker) instead of the dealt with tilt plan of the initial stage-- has been built by Juwi (which took over from the flattened RCR) and takes overall capacity to 40MW, with expected annual production of around 105 gigawatt hours a year.

"Greenough River has been generating at as much as 40MW given that completion of July," Bright Energy general manager Tom Frood told RenewEconomy's Energy Insiders podcast this week. The last information of the commissioning are being finished now.

Greenough River is currently the state's 2nd biggest solar farm, after the recently finished 100MW Merredin solar farm, as the expansion indicates it overtakes the solar farms constructed at Emu Downs and also Badgingarra, which both run as part of wind-solar hybrid facilities.

Frood stated it was unclear what the future held for solar farms in the state, provided the high as well as growing levels of roof solar, as well as the lack of new advancement opportunities identified in the current AEMO assessment.

Bright Energy, however, is interested in the proposed brand-new huge battery in W.A., a 100MW. 200MWh center advertised by the state government, which will certainly also reveal its Whole of System Plan, the W.A. variation of the Integrated System Plan, early following week.