WESTERN Australia will be close to achieving almost half its 2020 renewable energy target (RET) when both the Collgar Wind Farm and the planned Greenough River Solar Farm are fully operational.
Currently sitting at 5 per cent, renewable energy generation will increase to 9 per cent when these two major projects come completely online in 12 months.
The state government has set a 20 per cent target for renewables by 2020.
Owned by investment bank UBS and the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust, Collgar is a $750 million wind farm based in the Wheatbelt town of Merredin.
Although currently operational, Collgar is not yet at its full capacity of 204 megawatts.
Emu Downs – a $180 million joint venture between Griffin Energy and Queensland’s Stanwell Corporation, and operational since 2006 – produces 80MW at its peak. Another facility, at Walkaway, close to Geraldton, produces 90MW.
Verve Energy is also investing in wind, with the development of a 55MW wind farm at Mumbida 40 kilometres south-east of Geraldton in a joint venture with Macquarie Capital Group; and it is in the process of assessing the feasibility of building the same capacity at Milyeannup, 20km east of Augusta.
Generation through wind farms has been the mainstay of the state government’s means to meeting the RET, despite issues surrounding intermittency and wind’s inability to produce base load power.
In 2008-09, wind accounted for 65 per cent of renewable energy generation, while bio-energy (from biomass and biofuels) sat at 13 per cent, solar photovoltaic 1.7 per cent, and hydro generation 20 per cent.
At that point, renewable sources accounted for a total of 3.1 per cent of generated energy. In the South West Interconnected System (which covers Perth to Geraldton to Kalgoorlie and Albany), 5 per cent of energy was generated from renewable sources in 2008-09, a figure that grew from 1 per cent in 2003-04.
Domestic solar generation may currently be contentious, but its contribution to meeting the RET has grown 10-fold since 2008-09, when 6,500 systems produced close to 7 megawatts to the current 65,000 systems which contribute 150 megawatts.
Verve’s Greenough River Solar Farm is set for completion mid 2012 and will contribute 28 gigawatts to the grid each year from its site 30 kilometres from the Walkaway wind farm.
While wind and sun dominate the sector, the state government had intended to develop a biomass power station at Manjimup, which was forecast to be commissioned in late 2010.
That hasn’t happened yet, with the company in charge of the project, National Power and its subsidiary WA Biomass, yet to finalise their plans.
The plant was intended to be at Diamond Mill and was given the environmental go-ahead in 2009; National Power has until 2014 to apply for building approval.
The focus on renewable energy generation is linking in with other sustainable projects in WA, with electricity from the Emu Downs Wind Farm bought by Synergy Energy, which powers the Binningup Southern Seawater Desalination Plant, the state’s largest sea water desalination facility, owned and operated by the Water Corporation.
It was announced this week that the plant will be expanded to double its capacity in order to fill the urgent new water needs for the Integrated Water Supply Scheme that supplies Perth, Mandurah, the Goldfields and towns to Kalgoorlie.
