MPower recently has connected two of their five-megawatt tower solar farms in Australia, both of which are in the southern part of the state.
A 5MW solar plant on the same day it was announced that is made in connection with a project at the southern part of South Australia’s Mid North regions. This was specifically done as part of the powerplant commissioning that began in the preceding month. Moreover, it came with an expectation that it promises to produce outputs with full capacity over the next several weeks
Today, the MPower firm has said that it has tied a new 5MW solar project in Kadina on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, increasing the total to five. it is estimated to be at full output at a rate of 15% of the initial level within the next few weeks
This is due to a deal struck last year with Astronergy Australia, which has resulted in a value of almost 9 million dollars in these two projects.
MPower in leading Farm Projects
MPower divested its solar and photovoltaic energy storage product businesses in February of last year to work on the higher margins and improve the reliability of modernized renewable energy projects.
“MPower is already working on a flow path of 5MW solar power projects, and now has exclusivity on six sites,” says the CEO of the MPower firm, Nathan Wise, once the company has invested $150 million in its renewable energy portfolio.
With that much on the line, it worked with the target of establishing a good portfolio of up to 20MWac with a total of installed power of over 100 megawatts. This venture has an estimated monetary value of $150 million upon completion.
Two more locations are set to be added to the list in Victoria, as well as three more announced this month. MPower anticipates awarding exclusivity to each of at least four more sites in the future.
With this pitch, some larger facilities require special equipment for grid connection and have less efficient systems for distributing power to smaller facilities, but it is noted that they are suitable candidates for small-scale solar power projects because of the easy availability of power and/Connectivity of grids.
The regulatory and logistical obstacles are much less daunting in small solar farms – both of which contribute greatly to overall project costs.
The majority of the project sites are in New South Wales, Victoria, Australia, and South Australia. Licenses for small electricity generators are significantly cheaper in South Australia, running between $570 and $860 annually. In the range of 5 to 30 megawatts and up, it will cost $6,650.
Life expectancy in solar is less than 25 years or 30 years, and when the capital costs are divided by that they total less than 5MW of electricity, a savings of 90% or more in overall project costs is possible.
It’s not clear if the projects proposed by MPower are 5MW or only a few MW short of the 5MW target if the corporation was hoping to gain an advantage from lower license fees and fewer regulatory restrictions.