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Power Purchasing Agreement

Berri Solar Farm to be sold by the Riverland Council

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The $25m Berri Solar Farm is going to be sold by the Riverland council for a firm to take over the development due to a customer pulling out of a PPA (Power Purchasing Agreement).

Berri Solar Farm to be sold by the Riverland Council

Chief Executive of Berri Barmera, Karyn Burton, said the catalyst for the decision to sell the Berri solar farm was due to a major client pulling out of a Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA) due to being sold to another company. 

The farm was approved by the Riverland Regional Development Assessment Panel back in 2017 but construction work hasn’t commenced yet. The council also won a $5 million grant as part of the State Local Government Infrastructure Partnership for the build.

“That was in the mix until June, when they advised (the) council they were going to seek opportunities elsewhere,” Ms Burton said.

“They’d been taken over by a global group and they were looking at their energy needs on a global basis.”

Ms Burton continued to discuss the way the government would like to look at the 

“We’ll sell it as a shovel-ready project,” Ms Burton said.

“Councils are quite risk adverse – they won’t risk going into the market where prices for power fluctuate, not giving us that assurance that we’d cover that as a stand-alone business.

“Whereas there are other solar players out there would be able to do that.”

Mayor Peter Hunt said “despite putting in our best effort to deliver a great project for Council, Accolade Wines and the Community, the timing and justification to continue with the project was simply not right in the end. Accolade Wines was bought by new owners in 2018 and in terms of energy procurement and use, they are considering a number of options. We needed an answer and in this case they made it clear that they could not commit further to the project. The upside is we have fielded several enquiries to buy the project including lease rights to the old Racecourse site. We have expert advice that the project has strong commercial value and that is why we have decided to call for expressions of interest from parties seeking to buy the intellectual property and development rights.”

The council has called for expressions of interest in parties interested in buying the project, until September 27.

Read the article on the Berri Barmera Council website ‘Solar Farm Project to be Sold‘ if you’d like to learn more about the next steps for the Berri Solar Farm. 

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Coles Solar Power – Supermarket signs commercial solar PPA.

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Coles solar power – the giant supermarket company has signed a power purchasing agreement (PPA) with global renewable power generation company Metka EGN. Another huge step for commercial solar and retail solar. Let’s read more about it.

Coles Solar Power

The goal is to buy more than 70% of the energy generated by three solar power plants. The plants will be bnuilt and operated by Metka EGN in Wagga Wagga, Corowa, and Junee in New South Wales – this represents 10% of the company’s entire national electricity usage! Metka EGN are a London based EPC contractor working as a subsidiary of Greek company Mytilineos Holdings S.A. According to PV Magazine, construction of 169MW will commence by EOY and project development is at an ‘advanced stage’. 

Coles Group CEO Steven Cain discussed the move and Coles’ goal to be the most sustainable supermarket in Australia:

“Coles has been a cornerstone of Australian retail for more than 100 years, and ensuring the sustainability of our business is essential to success in our second century,” he said.

“We are thrilled that with this agreement, Coles can make a significant contribution to the growth of renewable energy supply in Australia, as well as to the communities we serve.” Mr. Cain continued.

Thinus Keeve, the Coles Chief Property and Export Officer, had some comments about the Coles solar power scheme – noting that it’s the first Australian retailer to commit to buying renewable energy through a PPA.

Metka/Coles’ solar plants will supply over 220 gigawatt hours of electricity to the national grid. This will result in the displacement of over 180,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. According to the media release this is also the equivalent of the annual emissions of 83,000 cars.

To read the media release entitled ‘Coles agreement secures three new solar power plants’ on the Coles website please click here.

What will Woolworths do to compete with this? Watch this space…

Greenpeace Australia Pacific Senior Campaigner, Lindsay Soutar spoke on the issue:

“Some of the world’s biggest companies, including supermarket chains Walmart and Tesco, have already made the commitment to 100 per cent renewable.

“We look forward to seeing Woolworths make similar commitments,” she said.

 

 

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UTS Solar – aiming to fully offset all energy.

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UTS Solar and renewables – the University of Technology Sydney have asked for proposals from large-scale renewable energy projects as they’re hoping to enter into a Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA) in order to fully offset the energy usage of buildings developed under UTS’ $1.3b City Campus Master Plan program.

UTS Solar – City Campus Master Plan

UTS Solar Large Scale PPA Tender
UTS Solar Large Scale PPA Tender (source: Seb Crawford via uts.edu.au)

According to the UTS Newsroom, their goal is for renewable energy purchasing to meet 40-50% of the university’s entire needs by 2019. The energy requirements of the newest buildings at UTS will be fully offset and are a great representation of UTS’s ongoing commitment to sustainable operation. 

UTS Deputy Vice Chancellor (Resources) Patrick Woods was quoted as saying, “UTS has a strong record of innovation in energy, with Australia’s first offsite solar corporate PPA with Singleton Solar farm, followed by another in Orange NSW and Australia’s first district cooling connection contract with Brookfield Central Park.”

According to Vice Chancellor Woods, “Corporate renewable energy PPAs are a method for institutions to secure competitive and firm energy prices whilst contributing to our sustainability objectives. They’ve been particularly successful in the US for corporations seeking the benefits of renewable energy. The ACT and Victorian Governments, and Telstra have had similar success in Australia.” Woods noted that there are already a number of projects with DA, ready to break ground, but need a PPA for the generation so they can secure financing – so hopefully one of them can pair up with UTS and get started! 

UTS could purchase large-scale generation certificates (LGCs) and electricity for a 10-15 year period – and according to the tender, they plan on implementing the PPA within the next two years. As such renewable technology projects of suitable scale and in the correct phase (i.e. already under development/with development approval and awaiting a PPA) are being sought to tender. 

University solar farms are far from a new thing, with the University of Southern Queensland’s innovative solar carpark winning awards and saving USQ over $1m so far. Although UTS isn’t actually installing solar in this circumstance, it’s still fantastic to see them tendering for a PPA – they do have a lot of solar panels on the premises and support many different renewable endeavours – such as the Solar Stand and their Centre for Clean Energy Technology. 

 

 
 

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