Windlab has announced that construction will soon start on a combined wind, solar and battery storage facility at Kennedy Energy Park in north Queensland, Australia. Kennedy Phase I is reported to be the world's first utility-scale, on-grid wind, solar and battery energy storage project and is expected to be up and running before the end of next year.
The Kennedy Energy Park at Flinders Shire in Queensland will be the first wind, solar and battery storage facility connected to Australia's electricity grid via a single connection. Making the most of Queensland's later afternoon, evening and night wind increase will be 12 Vestas V136 turbines rated at 43.2 MW. Standing 132 meters (433 ft) tall, they are set to be the largest turbines deployed in Australia.
A 15 MW AC single axis tracking solar setup will soak up the north Australian sun and 4 MWh of Tesla Li-ion battery storage should help smooth out generation spikes and dips. A Vestas' custom control system will manage the operation of the facility, to "provide the capability for wind and solar to work together as an integrated power plant and comply with grid requirements."
It's expected to take just over 12 months to complete construction, with the big switch on penciled in before the end of 2018. Once operational, Windlab says the facility will generate 210,000 MWh of electricity per year, which is said to be enough to meet the power needs of 35,000 average Australian homes. PPA CS Energy has committed to buy all the electricity generated for at least the next 10 years.
This Kennedy project is the first phase of a much bigger renewable energy plan for north Queensland.
