News

Brisbane-based Red Hill Renewable Energy has put forward its first project proposal, a 900 MW DC solar farm and BESS near Bororen in the Gladstone Regional Council LGA in Queensland.

The Rutherglen Solar Project is proposed to be built on approximately 1277 hectares of land used for cattle grazing, located approximately 6km east of Bororen township.

The project includes a battery energy storage system and ancillary infrastructure including inverter stations and substations.

A central high voltage switch yard will integrate the electricity generated by the solar farm into a single output and connect to Powerlink’s transmission lines that traverse the property.

Both fixed and tracker mounting systems are being considered, including the Jurchen PEG mounting system.

If approved and selected as the preferred mounting option it will be by far the largest project in Australia to use the Jurchen PEG technology, which has traditionally been used on 5 MW AC or less projects.

One of Red Hill Renewable Energy’s directors, Rob Mailler, is a pioneer of using Jurchen PEG equipment in projects he has been associated with.

Meralli Solar highlights the use of Jurchen PEG mounting in its projects which it says leads to “cost of build typically half that of traditional fixed tilt systems”.

According to Meralli Solar the PEG substructure “is mobile, light weight, simple to install with only hand tools, no DC trenching, no foundations, no concrete and requires minimal land giving you flexibility of choosing where to install”.

Since launching with the 4.6 MW Chillamurra Solar Farm in 2017, Jurchen PEG technology has been used at several Australian mid-scale projects, including; the 8.8 MW Latitude Solar Farm in NSW (2022), Tregalana Solar Farm Stage 1 in SA (2021), 9 MW Thunderbolt Community Solar in NSW (2021), 8.9 MW Baroota Solar Farm in SA (2019), 9.18 MW Kanowna Solar Farm in QLD (2019), 3.8 MW Dareton Solar Farm in NSW (2018) and 11 MW Dunblane Solar Farm in QLD (2018).