Floating Solar For Queensland’s Toowoomba?

A second proponent has made the next stage of Toowoomba Regional Council’s tender process for its New Energy Generation project.

There’s little published on the New Energy Generation project, just that it seeks to generate energy through Council’s existing land and water assets – a long term venture that will take place in multiple stages.

Council formally launched the procurement process in November 2019. The first company to get a guernsey in terms of progressing past the tender submission stage was BE Power in August this year, which is proposing a pumped hydro energy storage facility. Council didn’t have much more to say on it at the time, but last week GE Renewable Energy announced it had signed an agreement with BE Power to co-develop a 400MW pumped hydro storage project in the region.

Pumped hydro storage involves using surplus, off-peak or renewables-based electricity to power the pumping of water from a lower reservoir to a higher one. When electricity is needed, water from the higher reservoir is released and channelled through turbines to generate electricity, winding up back in the lower reservoir for the process to repeat.

While Australia is a generally dry country, there are plenty of pumped hydro storage opportunities. A study in 2017 indicated there were more than 22,000 potential pumped hydro storage sites across the nation, 1,700 of which were in Queensland.

According to GE Renewable Energy, the project at Cressbrook Dam – named the Big-T Pumped Hydro Storage Power Plant – would be the first new pumped hydro project completed in Queensland in more than 35 years.

Floating Solar Gets A Look-In

The next proponent to advance is EPC Technologies Pty Ltd, which is proposing a floating solar farm. Again, Toowoomba Regional Council was very vague on detail, but there are several potential locations in the local government area for a significant installation including Lake Cooby, Lake Cressbrook and Lake Perseverance. The image used alongside the announcement (also above) appears to be Lake Perseverance during a dry spell, but that doesn’t necessarily it’s where the floating solar farm would be located.

“Council is keen to explore renewable energy opportunities that successful proponents might offer, including a reduction in our energy costs,” said Mayor Paul Antonio. “Technology considered as part of this project could deliver important environmental benefits to our Region, including reduced greenhouse emissions.”

There’s not a great deal of floating solar in Australia currently and what exists are generally small projects, such as a 99kW floating solar system in Lismore New South Wales that has been operating for close to three years. Perhaps EPC’s project, should it proceed, could take the crown of the nation’s largest floating PV installation.

Among the advantages of floating solar are improved system performance through the cooling effects of water (helping to offset higher construction cost), while shade from the panels on the water below can inhibit growth of algae and reduce evaporation.

Toowoomba And Solar Power

As for solar power generally in Council’s area and as elsewhere in Queensland, small-scale PV is very popular, with close to 20,000 installations below 10kW capacity racked up to date. Solar installers in Toowoomba (and companies servicing it) continue to be kept pretty busy meeting demand for the electricity bill-busting technology.

In terms of Council’s own PV uptake, among the solar assets it already has in place are panels at:

• Highfields Sport and Recreation Park
• Toowoomba City Library
• Greater Toowoomba Waste Management Facility
• Kleinton Waste Management Facility
• Principal Depot (solar and battery storage)

There are also a number of large-scale PV facilities operating or in the pipeline in the region, including Bulli Creek, Oakey and Yarranlea solar farms.

All up, around 373MW of solar capacity has been installed in the Toowoomba Regional Council area.