FRV Completes 300-MW Walla Walla Solar Farm In NSW Project

• FRV Australia has fully commissioned the 300-MWac/353-MWp Walla Walla solar farm in New South Wales, adding major daytime capacity and local economic benefits.

Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) Australia has brought its 300-MWac (353-MWp) Walla Walla solar farm to full commercial operation, cementing one of New South Wales’ largest utility-scale PV projects as a new anchor of daytime generation. The milestone caps a multi-year cycle of land assembly, approvals, interconnection studies and construction that unfolded through a period of tight global supply chains for grid equipment.

Walla Walla follows the modern utility-PV blueprint. Bifacial modules on single-axis trackers maximise yield across seasons; a deliberately robust DC/AC ratio lifts annual energy rather than chasing headline peaks; and plant-level controls deliver reactive power, fault ride-through and swift curtailment response as required by Australian grid codes. That control stack matters in NSW, where rising shares of solar deepen midday troughs and increase the value of assets that can behave predictably under operator commands.

While the project enters service as solar-only, FRV has preserved optionality to add a co-located battery in future stages. Co-location would share the interconnection, cut round-trip losses relative to standalone storage and unlock revenues from evening peaks and fast frequency response—capabilities that make PV more dispatchable and bankable as market rules evolve.

Construction brought visible local benefits: hundreds of jobs at peak, procurement from regional suppliers and upgrades to access roads and drainage that remain after crews depart. Ongoing operations will support permanent technical roles and steady municipal revenues, with biodiversity measures—managed groundcover, habitat buffers and targeted weed control—embedded in the site’s environmental management plan.

Operationally, the first year is about stabilising performance. O&M teams will tune tracker angles, cleaning cycles and vegetation regimes to protect the net capacity factor through hot, dusty months and winter shoulder seasons. A unified SCADA platform and analytics will flag underperforming strings early, reduce corrective maintenance and keep availability on target.

For the NSW grid, Walla Walla’s steady block of daytime megawatt-hours arrives as electrification and data-center growth lift demand. More importantly, it demonstrates the maturity of large-scale PV delivery in the state: standardised designs, early transformer reservations and staged commissioning that gets electrons flowing sooner. With the project now “fully alive,” FRV has added not just capacity, but a replicable template for bankable build-out at scale.