Australia is developing some of the world’s largest solar farms on its way to become a renewable energy superpower. The scale of these new farms will be up to100 times larger than any existing solar farm in Australia. The current state-of-the-art yield and financial prediction models are inadequate for projects of this scale, given the use of new technologies, site configurations and business models as well as uncertain environmental impacts. These tool limitations constitute risks in increasing high financial and operational costs, and high uncertainty in predicted performance. We are currently working with Sun Cable, 5B, and PV Lighthouse, all from Australia, in a project funded by ARENA to take DC solar yield and financial prediction to the next level enabling significantly improved precision and optimal performance. There will be a particular focus on the specific operations and maintenance (O&M) requirements of the 5B MAVERICK that offers a paradigm shift in ultra-low-cost deployment but presents unique O&M challenges due to its proximity to the ground and high ground coverage. We expect our improved yield and financial modelling to offer savings of >$100M for multi-gigawatts scale projects in Australia.
UNSW Hoex Group 