Hughenden, Queensland; 25 July 2016: Construction of the first stage of Kennedy Energy Park (Kennedy) will commence early in 2017 having received development approval last week. Kennedy is an innovative world leading wind, solar and storage hybrid energy solution comprising of 30MW of Wind, 20 MW of Solar and 2MW of Li ion battery storage. All co-located with one connection point, the project will be the one of the first grid connected wind, solar and storage hybrids in the world. Development approval was decided at the Flinders’ Shire Council meeting on July 21, 2016, having received all required feedback from state and federal authorities earlier in the month.
Kennedy is located 20-km south east of Hughenden, just off the Flinders Highway. It will consist of 9 to 12 turbines depending on final selection and up to 200,000 solar panels. The solar panels will be single axis tracking to maximise potential from the western setting sun. 2MW of Li ion storage equivalent in size to 4 shipping containers will be also located on site.
The project will cost more than $120M to build and will create more than 50 direct and numerous indirect jobs in Hughenden during construction. Kennedy is being developed by Windlab Limited, the Australian owned, Canberra based company and Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation, of Japan. The partners successfully completed the award winning Coonooer Bridge Wind Farm early this year and are looking forward to another successful collaboration.
“Hughenden is almost unique in that it enjoys one of the best wind resources in Australia, co-located with one of the best solar resources. Furthermore, they are highly consistent and complementary; when the sun sets the wind ramps up and continues through to the morning after the sun rises. It is this unique characteristic that will allowKennedy to provide a near base load generation profile.” stated Geoff Burns, Project Director for Windlab.
Kennedy Energy Park is design to demonstrate how quality wind and solar resources of comparable size can be combined with grid scale storage to address the challenges of intermittency that are otherwise emphasised when there is any particular dominant renewable energy generation source.
Windlab Limited CEO Roger Price said “We are delighted to receive approval for Kennedy and wish to thank the community of Hughenden for their support of the project.” He added “This is a first of its kind project. Hughenden will lead the nation in the deployment of innovative near base load renewable energy generation that will help the Australian industry transition more successfully with less volatility to a sustainable clean energy future.” Windlab plans to use this first stage of the project to prove the effectiveness of the solution and garner support for a much large deployment. Windlab intends to build more than 1,000MW of wind and solar north of Hughenden, after completing this first stage.
Eurus’ CEO Hideyuki Inazumi stated “Kennedy is a very unique and an exciting project for Eurus, who has developed and invested in a number of wind and solar projects globally. We are proud of being a partner in such exceptional opportunity and are committed to success of the project.”
“Kennedy Energy Park has ticked all the boxes and we are excited that the project will now go ahead. We look forward to leading the way with renewable energy in North Queensland and are very pleased about the jobs and investment the project will bring to our shire.” said Jane McNamara, Flinders Shire Mayor.
Kennedy Energy Park will be operational early in 2018. The 50MW hybrid facility will generate enough electricity for more than 30,000 homes; more energy than required by Hughenden and surrounds. The balance will be exported to the national electricity network via Charters Towers.