The Glenrowan Solar Farm is ramping up to full output.
Pacific Partnerships energised its 130MWdc solar farm at Glenrowan last week and will now start supplying renewable electricity to the national network.
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Infrastructure developer Pacific Partnerships started testing and commissioning the solar farm early this month and achieved first energisation on November 21.
The solar farm is now set to start exporting renewable energy to the grid in early December and will ramp up to full production by the end of March next year.
Parent company CIMIC Group executive chairman Juan Santamaria said the solar farm would generate enough clean energy to power 45,000 Australian homes and has a 10-year power purchase agreement in place with the Victorian Government, supporting the state’s renewable energy targets.
Pacific Partnerships managing director Simon Nicholls said achieving on-time energisation just one year after construction began was testament to the team’s detailed planning, coordination and great working relationship with AEMO.
The 245-hectare solar farm is in Victoria’s North East Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), and has grid connection and services agreements with the Victorian transmission network operator and AEMO.
The Glenrowan Solar Farm is on track to providing clean energy to 45,000 Australian homes.
Pacific Partnerships engaged fellow CIMIC Group company UGL to engineer, procure, construct, operate and maintain the solar farm.
UGL managing director Doug Moss said economic stimulus was being delivered during the construction phase through 125 anticipated full-time equivalent jobs, with up to 70 per cent of the UGL workforce being local workers.
“In addition to local employment, we engaged the local supply chain as much as possible and worked with local plumbing, survey and mapping, solar farm construction and electrical businesses,” Mr Moss said.
“More than $2 million has been spent so far with Victorian social enterprises and Indigenous businesses, including construction of the operations building, fibre optic termination and DC electrical underground cabling subcontractor services.”
The next milestone announcement will bring more local benefit, with the first round of $50,000 in benefit sharing funding to be allocated from the project’s community benefit program.
Asked about the sourcing of solar panels and whether any were sourced from the controversial Xinjiang Province of China where some manufacturing is carried out by forced labour, a spokesperson referred Country News to the companies corporate policies on modern slavery.
“We regularly conduct audits of our supply chain to ensure our supply chain meets the appropriate regulatory labour requirements,” a spokesperson said.
CIMIC Group is an engineering-led construction, mining, services and public-private partnerships company working across the lifecycle of assets, infrastructure and resources projects.
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