Construction Near or Under Way at Infigen's Capital East Solar and Energy Storage Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Perth, Australia)--Infigen Energy (ASX:IFN) (Sydney, Australia), which is known for its renewable energy business, has recently received a go-ahead from the Palerang Council to construct a 1-megawatt (MW) solar and energy storage demonstration facility. The project, called Capital East Solar Farm, brought a huge respite to Infigen after it had lost the approval for one of its solar projects with Suntech during 2011.

Capital East Solar Farm is the first solar farm that is registered under the National Electricity Market (NEM). Development of this project will be done in two stages. Stage 1 will produce 250 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, and Stage 2 will add a further 1 MW to the plant. This whole energy storage system will be installed alongside the solar photovoltaic (PV) array to store over an hour of the PV array's generation in the absence of sun.

Although this is the smallest facility to start with, David Griffin, development manager for this project, strongly affirms that there are plans for further expansions after the demonstration facility has been successfully completed. Infigen will keep continuing research and development and conduct testings on various storage applications along with different construction and mounting techniques. According to Mr. Griffin, "The lessons learnt from this demonstration plant will be applied to the design of future utility-scale PV plants and the integration of future large-scale energy storage into the NEM."

Funds for Capital East Solar Farm will be facilitated by Infigen, with resources totalling estimated capital expenditures of up to $3 million. Planning work on this project began during 2011. After having all the approvals for the project received recently, Infigen is progressing with work on the grid connection. The company is also currently seeking equipment suppliers for this project. After this happens, Infigen will select all the required electrical, procurement and electrical contractors by end of August 2012. Upon all the finalizations, Infigen expects to begin project construction in September 2012. The overall construction time will be around nine to 10 months, and project completion is expected by June 2013. Upon completion of the demonstration facility, Infigen will expand the capacity of the facility to a further 1 MW. The company has already received all planning and budget approvals for this expanded capacity.

Industrial Info Resources is currently tracking five windfarm projects proposed by Infigen. The total capital investment of $1.5 billion has been spread throughout several regions in Australia. The total estimated electricity generation from this windfarm is expected to be 835 MW. TheWoakwine windfarm in South Australia alone is expected to generate 450 MW of wind energy, taking the major share with a total expenditure of $850 million. Woakwine is currently expecting capital approval by end of August 2012 for the construction that will start by February 2013.

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