News

WA state-owned gentailer Synergy’s Tathra Wind Farm project, proposed on a site 15km east of Eneabba in the Mid-West Region of Western Australia, has created mixed messages if not outright conflict-of-interest issues.

On one hand the WA state government, via its owned transmission entity Western Power, is planning a number of significant SWIS upgrades including the Clean Energy Link-North project running through the Mid-West region which has started.

At the same time, as AltEnergy understands it, Synergy is running a process to explore procuring renewable energy for the SWIS, although it is difficult to find public information about this process let alone the capacities in mind.

In parallel with this Synergy is proposing to develop its Tathra project which will generate up to 1000 MW of wind power, up to 500 MW of solar, and include 500 MW of battery storage - making it one of the largest hybrid projects under development in WA.

Tathra Wind Farm will connect into the South-West Interconnected System via existing 330kV Eneabba to Three Springs transmission lines which are situated within the project’s development envelope.

This section of the grid is to be upgraded by Clean Energy Link-North to allow an additional 1 GW of new renewable energy to be fed into the SWIS.

Hang on, that means if Synergy’s Tathra project is built to capacity ALL that extra capacity made available will be taken – by Synergy.

Not only that, as WA’s sole, government-backed retailer Synergy is in the box seat to offer itself an offtake PPA for the Tathra project.

That’s a significant advantage to have over other private developers looking to build projects in that part of the grid, and there are plenty of them (see yellow project pins in the map, one of which is Tathra).

As one project developer told AltEnergy on condition of anonymity, “The broader issue of Synergy developing renewable energy projects at the same time as trying to secure third party customers in the market sends a confusing signal to the broader market, and raises questions around internal confidentiality (Synergy development and Synergy procurement), and the objectiveness of Synergy in deciding which projects it will support.

“Synergy's structure as a renewable developer as well as a retailer puts them in a position which could see them crowd out private developers if they favour their own projects over those being developed by the private sector.”

Then again another developer representative was comfortable with the idea of Synergy’s Tathra project, saying while it was “frustrating to have competition, Synergy is more than entitled to develop its own projects”.

Let’s not forget either the federal government’s open (until Friday) Capacity Investment Scheme Tender 5 which is seeking an indicative target of 1600 MW of renewable energy generation across the WEM for projects located in WA that will connect to the SWIS.