The plans for a large solar farm and batteries at Perry Bridge have recently come to my notice. The company website states the following: “The Perry Bridge Solar Farm concept was conceived because of the desperate need for additional electricity supply and increased reliability within the region east of the Latrobe Valley.”
“The design of the project, subject to sign off by the design engineers, will be a single axis array system of around 110,000 high voltage mono-facial output solar panels with the possible addition of some bi-facial modules. Bi-facial modules as the name suggests produce solar power from both sides of the solar panel and can improve energy generation by up to 8%.”
“The battery storage is an essential part of the project as it assists in ensuring consistent energy supply to the electricity grid during times of low solar energy output. The solar farm is to be connected to the AusNet Services 66kV network in the proximity of Stratford-Bengworden Road at Perry Bridge. The connection process has commenced with final approval expected by October 2020.”
The proposal is to have 44MW of panels and 40-50MW of battery storage on 232 acres of relatively low productive land. The battery is about half the size of the big battery at Hornsdale in South Australia. Of importance is the location adjacent to/ near the existing mains transmission lines where no added infrastructure is required.
This blog has been advocating for some time that projects of this sort be fast forwarded as quickly as is possible. Projects on the drawing board that could be assisted by special government attention include the offshore wind project Star of the South, and the Delburn wind farm and the Sea Electric electric vehicle factory both in the Valley.
To these admirable projects can be added the Perry Bridge Solar Farm which is situated close enough to Bairnsdale and East Gippsland to provide employment for a local economy first ravaged by the bushfires and now by the coronavirus lockdown making it an ideal project for a depressed East Gippsland economy.