Powering SA's electricity grid through solar farms

Five mid- to large-scale solar farm projects will power around 5000 South Australian homes by generating electricity to the grid.

This will be undertaken as part of a long-term agreement between Yates Electrical Services Group (YES Group) and Sustainable Energy Infrastructure (SEI), to design, develop, own, operate and maintain the solar farms.

Once completed, these solar farms will deliver approximately 20 MW of electricity generation to the South Australian grid. The first two projects began construction in early 2021, with final commissioning occurring in September 2021.

The YES Group designed both solar farms to include FIMER’s PVS-175 and medium-voltage compact skid inverter solutions.

“Since YES Group launched the Redmud Green Energy project five years ago in South Australia, FIMER/ABB have been a key component of our projects,” said Mark Yates, Director of YES Group.

“FIMER’s products are modular, flexible and scalable. Their solutions provide a simple and effective solution for installation, deployment and the ongoing operation and maintenance of medium- to large-scale projects. This has enabled us to roll out our distributed network of solar farms — consisting of over one hundred 200 kW to 5 MW projects — throughout South Australia in a relatively short time frame and meeting a very high standard of quality.”

Bowmans Solar Farm project

The Bowmans project was the first project completed and is located 100 km north of Adelaide. The site encompasses 4400 solar panels, single-axis tracking and 11 FIMER PVS-175 string inverters combined with FIMER’s PVS-175-MVCS solution. This 1.9 MW solar farm was fully commissioned in September 2021 and will produce over 4850 MWh per year or power over 750 homes.

Renmark Solar Farm project

The Renmark project was the second project to be completed and is located 250 km northeast of Adelaide. The site encompasses over 9790 solar panels, single-axis tracking and 24 FIMER PVS-175 string inverters combined with FIMER’s PVS-175-MVCS solution. This 4 MW solar farm was fully commissioned in September 2021 and will produce over 10,000 MWh per year or power over 1300 homes.

Inverter technology

FIMER’s PVS-175 is a three-phase string inverter and comes with 12 independent MPPTs for increased design flexibility and increasing yields. The fuse-free design can deliver up to 185 kVA at 800 VAC. This not only maximises the ROI for ground-mounted utility-scale applications but also reduces balance of system costs (ie, AC side cabling) for small- to large-scale, free field ground-mounted PV installations.

The PVS-175 inverters installed on both sites are connected to FIMER’s medium-voltage compact skid (MVCS), which includes both LV and MV switchgear, transformer and protection in a pre-fabricated skid that enables an easy and cost-effective connection of each solar farm to the South Australian grid.

Top image caption: Bowmans Solar Farm project in South Australia.