The solar project will be located 100km south-east of Adelaide in South Australia. Construction is due for start in this month and the first power from the plant is expected to be generated in next year’s first quarter.
When completed, the solar project will generate enough clean electricity to be supplied to at least 41,600 Australian homes, while saving at least 102,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere annually.
Tailem Solar is claimed to be one of the low cost solar projects in Australia and could create hundreds of jobs, training opportunities and economic growth within Tailem Bend and surrounding local communities.
Equis stated that an area at the solar project site has been reserved for battery installation with a storage capacity of 100MWh in future.
For this project, Equis has entered into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Snowy Hydro, as per which, the company will buy 100% of the power from Tailem Solar for at least 22 years.
Snowy Hydro is an integrated energy company from Australia that owns and operates 5.5GW of generation capacity across the country, including the 4.1GW Snowy Mountains hydro-electric project.
Equis Energy Director David Russell said: “Australia represents one of the most exciting solar power generation markets globally and Equis expects to build over $1bn of new projects over the next 24-36 months.
“As Asia’s largest renewable energy developer, Equis is able to leverage its economies of scale to deliver large scale, low-cost, reliable renewable energy, which Australia needs, as well as providing employment opportunities and supporting economic growth in local communities.”
Equis Energy has given the construction and maintenance contract of the project to CIMIC Group’s UGL.
UGL will undertake the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the project, including the associated substation.
Besides this project, Equis is planning to build Tailem Bend 2, an 111MW project adjacent to Tailem Solar. The two Tailem Bend solar projects will have a combined generation output of about 413,000MWh per year, which is enough to be supplied to about 82,600 Australian homes, while offsetting 200,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
Image: Equis Energy to construct 127MW solar plant in Australia. Photo: Courtesy of RK008/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
