Carnegie to build $20m solar power station

Renewable-focused Carnegie Clean Energy has announced it is developing a $20 million, 10-megawatt solar power station in Northam, which it says will generate enough electricity to power 4,000 homes for 25 years.

Fremantle-based Carnegie said the joint venture project between its recently acquired subsidiary Energy Made Clean and Lendlease was for the construction of 34,000 solar panels on 25 hectares of land, which would deliver 24,000MW hours of electricity per year.

The project is expected to cost between $15 million and $20 million, with work to begin mid-year and be completed by the end of 2017.

Carnegie will own and operate the station for at least 25 years.

“Carnegie will continue to pursue the ‘build own operate’ business model through the investment and operation of the solar farm and will sell the power under contract through a power purchase agreement or on a merchant basis into the electricity market,” Carnegie said.

The system has also been designed to be battery storage ready.

Carnegie managing director Michael Ottaviano said the capabilities of the EMC-Lendlease joint venture, combined with the design, development and financing capabilities of Carnegie, provided the company with a clear point of difference in the emerging utility solar market in Australia.

“Carnegie is planning on replicating this approach across Australia,” he said.

“The ability to add utility scale battery storage is a new product offering we will integrate into our own solar farms and also to other developers of utility scale solar farms as the technology costs continue to decline in the coming years.”

Carnegie said it was in discussions with third party equity and debt providers and had a range of funding options to bring the project to completion.

Carnegie shares were 8.1 per cent higher to 8 cents each at 10:30am.