A Big Solar Energy Boost For Banana Shire

Queensland’s Banana Shire will soon be home to a 110MW solar farm – the first major PV project for the region.

Situated between the township of Moura and Banana in Central Queensland, construction of Moura Solar Farm is expected to be completed around August this year and in the meantime will provide a big employment boost for the local economy, with up to 250 jobs during construction.

Originally an ESCO Pacific project, it was acquired by Greece-based industrial company Mytilineos in late 2020.

“Mytilineos’ decision to develop the Moura Solar farm here is another example of business looking for outstanding opportunities to grow and prosper and the Banana Shire can provide that,” said Banana Shire Deputy Mayor Cr Colin Semple. “Spread over 28,000 square kilometres, our Shire provides a mix of agricultural land, a budding new tourism hub, mining and construction opportunities, so it makes perfect sense to do business here.”

This will be the first solar farm for Banana Shire – in fact, it appears to be the first large-scale solar in the local government area. While there are more than 2,000 solar installations in the region with a combined capacity heading towards 12MW, these are all home and commercial systems below 100kW capacity.

Moura Solar Farm’s development footprint is approximately 203 hectares of land previously used for cattle grazing. The site was chosen for its abundant solar resources, proximity to Powerlink’s transmission network and easy access from Dawson Highway. Construction works by Powerlink for the connection aspect of the project commenced in May 2021 and were completed late last year.

Even before it cranks its first megawatt-hour, more than half of Moura Solar Farm’s output is already spoken for through a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with Queensland Government-owned CS Energy Limited. The 56 MW of generation contracted to CS Energy has been onsold to an unnamed large industrial customer.

Mytilineos In Australia

Mytilineos considers Australia a key market its global renewables development strategy.

The company has built up a significant portfolio of solar projects in Australia since it acquired its first bundle here back in 2019, which was a total of six projects in New South Wales and Queensland including Corowa, Junee and Wagga Solar Farms.

Since that time it has also acquired Wyalong Solar Farm in NSW that Mytilineos says “will produce about 75 watt of energy” – which is obviously a typo mixed with confusion between power and energy. Wyalong is a 75MW facility and was originally another ESCO Pacific project acquired by Mytilineos in late 2020. This project also came with a long-term PPA in place.

It’s not clear the total capacity in Mytilineos’ Australian stable currently, but at the end of December 2020 it stood at 400MW.

According to the company’s website, it has a current pipeline of projects exceeding 1.9 GW worldwide and has completed more than 1.5 GW of solar farms and 400 MW of energy storage projects through its Renewables & Storage Development Business Unit, operated by subsidiary METKA EGN.