The Water Corporation is set to purchase the entire renewable energy output from Verve Energy's Mumbida Wind Farm and Greenough River Solar Farm to offset the energy requirements of its Southern Seawater Desalination Plant.
Mumbida is a joint venture wind farm between Verve and Macquarie Capital and will generate 55 megawatts of renewable energy while Verve's $50 million Greenough project (announced in September last year) will be WA’s largest utility solar plant producing 10 megawatts of renewable energy.
BP was originally announced as a partner of Greenough, but that deal was not finalised and First Solar and GE Energy Financial Services recently signed deals to be supplier and financier to the project respectively.
The solar farm will be a hybrid solar/diesel plant and will produce 28 gigawatt hours of energy each year. $20 million in funding for Greenough is coming from the state government, including $10 million from the Brendan Grylls led Royalties for Regions program.
The solar development will be commissioned in mid-2012 and Mumbida will be commissioned in late 2012 – both projects are based in the Mid West region.
Water minister Bill Marmion said "the commitment to purchase 100 per cent of the output from these two new renewable energy sources is the last major agreement to be put in place for the SSDP which will be fully commissioned later this year."
“These exciting renewable energy projects will not only enable the Water Corporation to achieve its environmental objectives associated with the SSDP, but also provide a major boost for WA’s renewable energy sector.”
Premier Colin Barnett recently announced the Southern Seawater Desalination Plant would have its capacity doubled, in order to provide 100 billion litres of drinking water a year to the Integrated Water Supply Scheme stretching from Perth to the Goldfields.
The first stage of the new plant near Binningup has been built over the past two and half years at a cost of $955 million and the expansion, set to deliver the first drop into the IWSS by December 2012, would cost $450 million.
Energy minister Peter Collier said the two renewable projects, developed at a cost of about $200 million, would provide a significant stimulus to the Mid West and add to the increasingly diverse mix of renewable energy generation in Western Australia.
Mr Marmion said while the new renewable sources would not be ready in time for the plant opening, agreements were in place to purchase additional renewable energy produced by these sources into the future, along with the associated credits to offset the period where traditional energy would be utilised.
He said the SSDP would use the most up-to-date, proven energy efficiency technologies. In particular, the plant would use energy recovery devices with an efficiency of greater than 96 per cent, reducing the overall energy required in membrane desalination by up to 60 per cent.
The announcement follows Mr Collier’s outline last week of plans for Synergy to contract 450 megawatts of renewable power generation by 2020.
“The Greenough River Solar Farm will be one of the biggest in Australia when completed, while the Mumbida facility is expected to be the fourth-largest wind farm established in WA,” he said.