The Lyon Group is developing one of the world’s most advanced combined solar and battery storage plant in South Australia’s mining heartland.
Known as the Kingfisher Project, the initiative will feature a solar PV plant and a battery storage facility that uses sophisticated system management processes and is connected to a grid with operational mining activities.
The project will be connected to the National Electricity Market (NEM) – the wholesale electricity market in Australia – and features two stages of development.
Stage 1 will deliver 20MWdc of solar PV plus a minimum of 2MWhr lithium-based battery storage. This stage will enable analysis and performance assessment of the plant in harsh desert conditions. Commercial operations are scheduled to get under way before September 2017
Stage 2 will deliver 100MW of solar PV with a minimum 20MWh of battery storage and is expected to operate commercially before the end of 2017. Given current volatility in the South Australian energy market, the battery storage may upgraded to an initial 40MWh.
The combination of solar and storage means the facilities can provide high quality, reliable power to large energy users while also potentially avoiding the costs of grid upgrades.
The Kingfisher Project builds on the Lyon Group’s success with its Cook solar-storage project near Cooktown in far north Queensland while taking the further step of connecting to a grid that services major mining activity. Kingfisher’s deployment timetable for the Roxby Downs development will be fast-tracked on the back of Lyon’s experience with the Cook solar-storage initiative.
Kingfisher is already attracting attention from resources companies in Australia and globally as it will help bring forward the development of reliable and renewable energy to meet their demanding requirements.
The project is one of the finalists in the Australian Renewable Energy Agency funding round for large-scale solar.