White Rock wind farm in New South Wales reaches FC

Goldwind has announced that northern New South Wales' solar farm, White Rock Solar Farm,  has reached financial close following the award of a grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Located next to the northern end of the 175 MW White Rock Wind Farm, the 20 MW PV power plant will be 18 km west of Glen Innes. Its annual production is expected to reach around 44,000 MWh of electricity, enough to supply the equivalent of approximately 7,200 average NSW homes.

Total investment in the solar plant is AUD41.4 million (US$30.26 million), of which AUD5.4 million (US$4 million) in funding comes from ARENA and AUD25 million (US$18.4 million) in debt from Agricultural Bank of China (Sydney Branch) and AUD11 million (US$8.1 million) equity from Goldwind.

Laura Jeffrey, development manager for the project, said:

“The award of a large-scale solar competitive grant by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has led to White Rock Solar Farm achieving financial close. The ARENA large scale solar initiative has been successful in stimulating strong competition and innovation among Australian solar projects.

The opportunity to share wind farm infrastructure maximizes the use of available facilities without requiring construction of additional facilities elsewhere, this is estimated to unlock over (US$3.6 million) of savings.”

With a completion date set for January 2018, construction is planned to start in July 2017. Procurement and construction contract has been awarded to UGL, a member of the CIMIC Group.