Wind plans for huge South Australia renewables precinct get federal green light

The full scale of Neoen’s Goyder wind and solar and battery project in South Australia is slowly being realised, with plans for the stage 1 and 2 of the northern section receiving the federal green light. 

Plans for the 99-turbine, 600 megawatt (MW) Goyder North stages 1 and 2 are EPBC-approved with conditions around offsets, clearing, and how to handle pygmy blue tongued lizards and Flinders Ranges worm lizards. 

Neoen rejigged the two stages last year, removing five turbines and adding 12 to a new section at the northern tip of the area. 

The developer also upsized the turbines slightly, asking and receiving approval from the EPBC to add an extra 5m to the blades, taking them to 95m.

The proposed 225 MW/900MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) is unchanged but will sit on a smaller footprint.

While Neoen’s branding is still all over the Goyder renewable energy hub, the mammoth project is now owned by Brookfield whose $10.2 billion purchase of the French company was finalised in March last year.

The current vision for the whole projects is for more than 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar generation, and for multiple batteries with as much as 1,800 MW capacity and three hours of storage.

With planning work on the northern section continuing, Goyder South was the first stage of the full Goyder Renewables Zone, near Burra in the state’s mid-north, which is emerging as one of the country’s biggest wind, solar and battery hybrid projects.

The zone sites north of the network crossroads, where the interstate EnergyConnect connects South Australia to New South Wales, and where planned new transmission lines will take power to electricity demand centres of Whyalla and Perth.

The first 412 MW stage of the Goyder South project officially opened last year.

It’s backed by a 2020 deal with the ACT government for 100MW of that capacity at the lowest publicly announced feed-in tariff ever seen in Australia, just $44.97 a megawatt hour.

The other side of the South project is a 600 MW solar project and 600 MW more of wind, as well as a 900 MW, 1,800 megawatt hour (MWh) battery, all of which have their state planning permits, Neoen says.

Neoen also signed a first of its kind “baseload renewables” contract with BHP for another 200 MW of wind capacity from Goyder South – backed by Neoen’s recently completed Blyth battery – to help power the mining giant’s massive Olympic Dam copper mine and smelter, and nearby operations.

Neoen has since signed a second “baseload renewables” contract with BHP, this time involving 300 MW from the new Goyder North wind project, backed by the soon to be built 200 MW, 800 MWh Goyder battery.

More information:https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-plans-for-huge-south-australia-renewables-precinct-get-federal-green-light/