Darling Downs Solar Project

Summary

The project is one of 12 large-scale solar PV projects supported by ARENA to increase the nation’s experience in planning and building large scale solar PV and making it more competitive by increasing confidence and building supply chains. Once complete, the 12 projects are expected to triple the amount of electricity produced from big solar in Australia and unlock almost $1 billion of commercial investment in the technology.

Need

The Darling Downs Solar Project project by the APA Group was funded during a time that the large-scale solar PV industry in Australia was in its infancy. The 12 new large- scale projects will change this by adding almost 500MW of new generation, powering 150,000 average Australian homes.

Benefit

By supporting Darling Downs Solar Farm and other large-scale solar projects, ARENA is making the benefits of solar available to more Australian energy consumers. It is anticipated that the Project which features over 430,000 PV solar modules will be able to generate enough energy to power some 30,000 average Australian homes.

The cost trajectory of large-scale solar PV has seen the technology become competitive without additional support. The competitive round was critical in supporting this outcome by helping to close the cost gap that existed between large-scale solar PV and other commercially competitive forms of power generation, including wind energy.

ARENA will be sharing knowledge from the Large Scale Solar competitive round projects on a range of topics, from construction techniques, solar forecasting and capital costs, to Operations and Maintenance (O&M) practices and grid impacts.