Kennedy Energy Park is a 60MW hybrid wind and solar energy generation and storage facility located in Queensland, Australia. It is the first fully-integrated utility-scale hybrid renewable energy project in the world.
Windlab and Eurus Energy Holdings are developing the energy park under a 50-50 joint-venture. The project is expected to generate approximately 210,000MWh of power a year, which will be sufficient to supply for approximately 35,000 average Australian homes.
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Estimated to cost $160m, the hybrid project received Australian Government’s approval in 2016. Its construction was commenced in December 2017, while grid connection is planned to be completed in August 2019. The project is expected to be fully commissioned by the end of 2019.
Kennedy Energy Park location and project background
The Kennedy Energy Park site is located in Flinders Shire, approximately 22km south-east of Hughenden, in central north Queensland. The region hosts one of the highest levels of solar irradiance in addition to superior wind resource.
Kennedy Energy Park is the first phase of a more than two-phase $2bn renewable energy precinct proposed to exploit the wind resources in North Queensland. The second phase, referred as Big Kennedy, fully owned by Windlab, is expected to provide up to 1.2GW of wind energy.
Kennedy Energy Park details
The Kennedy Energy Park consists of 43.2MW of wind capacity, 15MW of solar energy capacity, and a 4MWh lithium ion battery storage plant.
The wind farm consists of 12 Vestas V136 3.6 MW wind turbines mounted on a 594m³ mass reinforced concrete foundation. The turbines were imported through the Port of Townsville to the project site in June 2019.
Each turbine has a hub height of 132m, while the blades are 67m-long each.
The energy park consists of 56,000 single-axis tracking solar photovoltaic panels and a lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) supplied by Tesla.
Transmission details
Two electrical substations will be located at the Kennedy Energy Project and Cape River, in addition to a switchyard.
The power generated by the project will be transmitted to the national grid through existing transmission infrastructure. The existing overhead distribution lines are proposed to be modified to improve the connection to the existing Ergon Distribution Network.
Power off-take agreement
CS Energy will purchase the electricity produced from the Kennedy Energy Park under a ten-year off-take agreement. CS also agreed to purchase a proportion of the generation certificates from the proposed hybrid generation project.
Financing
Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) provided sub-ordinated refundable grant of $18m, while Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) contributed $94m of non-recourse debt finance for the project.
Windlab and Eurus are providing equity funding for the project.
Contractors involved
Quanta Solar Australia, in consortium with Vestas, was engaged as the engineering, procurement, and construction services (EPC) contractor for the project.
In addition to supplying the wind turbines, Vestas also signed a 15-year service maintenance contract. It is, further, responsible for the hybrid energy park operation and maintenance.
Enscope was engaged for conducting earthworks, pavement, drainage, and construction of the wind turbine generator foundations, respectively.
icubed Consulting was engaged to design the wind turbine foundations as well as access tracks, drainage, laydown pads, and stormwater crossings of the project.
DNV GL, a part of Det Norske Veritas group, conducted full technical review of the project.
