Karadoc Solar Farm | Solar Farms in Victoria

The Karadoc Solar Farm has launched and is currently exporting power to the grid – making it the biggest solar farm in Victoria (for now). 

Karadoc Solar Farm

Karadoc Solar Farm
Karadoc Solar Farm (source: baywa-re.com.au)

The 112MW Karadoc Solar Farm can power over 110,000 homes. It’s located 35km south of Mildura and is being built by German-based energy company Bay-Wa. With 112MW it is just marginally larger than the Bannerton solar park, which outputs 110MW and is responsible for powering solar powered trams in Melbourne

As per this article from RenewEconomy, brewer Carlton and United Breweries (CUB) has contracted the entire output of the project in its goal to become 100% powered by renewable energy. 

“This represents an important step in CUB’s commitment to 100 per cent of its electricity being sourced from renewables,” said CUB CEO Jan Craps at the time.

There are a number of large-scale solar farms in Victoria in various stages of their life cycle, but all will be online by summer 2018/19:

  • Bannerton Solar Farm (110MW)
  • Karadoc Solar Farm (112MW)
  • Yatpool Solar Farm (81MW – Also a Bay-Wa project)
  • Wemen Solar Farm (110MW – also known as the Wemen Sun Farm)
  • Ganawarra Solar Farm (50MW – Live)
  • Swan Hill Solar Farm (15MW – Live)
  • Kiamal Solar Farm (265MW DC – won’t be completed until the middle of next year)

This isn’t even mentioning the 928MW which will be generated via three solar and wind farms as per a recent Victoria government renewable energy tender. 

Daniel Gäfke, Managing Director of BayWa r.e. Solar Pte Ltd. “The Karadoc solar farm is the largest installation ever undertaken by BayWa r.e and is a great showcase of our ability to procure, design and build projects of this size anywhere in the world. Australia is a very important market for us and this investment is testament to the commitment we have to help increase Australia’s renewable energy capacity.”

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Wemen Sun Farm construction in 2017 – Wirsol

Wirsol Energy Pty Ltd will commence construction on the 110MW Wemen Sun Farm later this year. Wirsol, an arm of German renewables developer Wircon GmbH, didn’t provide information on who they bought the farm from or for how much (it was previously owned by Overland Sum Farming along with Island Green Power). No word on the two other Mildura solar projects owned by the same companies – the future of the Yatpool Sun Farm and the Karodoc Sun Farm is currently unknown.

Wirsol - Wemen Sun Farm
Wirsol – new owners of Wemen Sun Farm (translation – ‘Everyone can make electricity’ – if my school German doesn’t fail me…)

Wirsol Energy did note that by the end of the year they will have five solar farms under construction in Queensland and Victoria – with a combined capacity of around 400MW. So it wouldn’t be surprising if they’ve done a deal to procure one of Yatpool and Karodoc projects, given that they have already announced three other solar farms in various stages of completion.  

According to the Wirsol website  they will also have the Whitsunday Solar Farm (Collinsville – 69MW), Hamilton Solar Farm (Collinsville – 69MW), and the Gannawarra Solar Farm (Kerang, 60MW) all commencing commercial operations in Q1 2018 – if you add their output to the Wemen Sun Farm that makes approximately 310MW – we’ll see what the fifth farm is soon enough, no doubt! There will be much more to come – according to Wirsol they plan to deploy up to 1GW of solar power by 2020. 

Mark Hogan, MD of Wirsol, was quoted on their website as saying “We are thrilled to announce the successful acquisition and refinancing of this portfolio as it marks our first move into the Australian renewable sector.  Our success in Australia has been driven by the significant experience accrued in the European market and deploying 1 GW of solar to date.  We believe this transaction demonstrates the importance of bringing together industry knowledge and local expertise to successfully develop, construct and finance large-scale renewable projects.  This transaction firmly positions Wirsol as one of Australia’s leading renewable investors.  We will continue building on this success and are actively seeking to acquire further development opportunities to fulfil our internal ambition of deploying 1GWp solar across Australia by 2020.”

Wemen Sun Farm

The project is located at Hatta-Bronvale Road in Wemen, close to the border of Victoria and New South Wales and approximately 110km south east of Mildura. 

According to RenewablesNow, it is a 110MW plant on 770 acres and will ‘give rise to regional value creation’ of over $200m. AussieRenewables are reporting that Powercor Australia have signed PPAs to connect the projects to the state electrical grid, but no word on if that agreement will carry over with the new owners (that information was taken from the Overland Sun Farming site back in March). Overland CE Brett Thomas was quoted in WeeklyTimesNow as saying that the farm’s panels would use tracking to follow the sun from east to west; we’ll undoubtedly see more information about this as the project enters development. Another great development for Australian solar farms

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