Solar Market Set to Boom in Canberra

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Australia (Perth, Australia)--Canberra is set to become the solar capital of Australia, with 40 megawatts (MW) of large-scale solar plants coming online by mid-2015. The Australian Capital Territory's (ACT) climate change strategy, called "Big Solar," aims to reduce the capital's greenhouse emissions 40% by 2020.

In August 2013, Big Solar announced that Elementus Energy Pty Limited (Sydney, Australia) and China's Zhenfa Australia Pty Limited (Sydney) were the two winners of the second round of the Solar Auction, out of 15 bidders. According to ACT, Elementus and Zenfa's solar projects had lower capital costs than AGL Energy's (Sydney, Australia) 155-MW solar farm, which is to be built at Broken Hill and Nyngan forf about $450 million. The projects also ruled out the pricing offered by Fotowatio Renewable Venture's (Sydney, Australia) 20-MW Royalla project, which won the first round of auctioning last year.

Elementus will build the 7-MW OneSun Capital Solar Farm for $17 million, and Zhenfa Group will be investing $30 million to build its 13-MW Mugga Lane Solar Park (MLSP).

Zhenfa Solar's Mugga Lane, which is planned to be the largest agriculturally integrated solar park, will be located at the intersection of Mugga Lane and Monaro Highway in Canberra. The plant will feature 53,000 solar modules with a mix of fixed and tracking systems and will generate 13 MW of electricity. About 500 kilowatts of the array will be on a tracking system, which it says will allow more energy to be generated during peak demand periods.

The OneSun solar farm by Elementus will be built in the district of Coree, approximately 30 kilometres to the west of Canberra, and will have 26,190 solar panels in a fixed tilt configuration to produce 7 MW. Both the power plants will be constructed in 2014, and they will come into operation by 2015.

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