As the Northern Territory government fights to power future data centres with Beetaloo gas, its publicly-owned utility Territory Generation is turning its focus to more renewables, as it prepares to launch a tender for additional grid-scale solar generation capacity to bolster its grids.
Territory Generation on Thursday called for Expressions of Interest in the development of utility-scale solar for Alice Springs, which is served by one of the NT’s three small, stand-alone grids.
The utility says it is scoping out options for projects with a generation capacity of between 5 and 15 megawatts (MW), with or without battery storage included, and will use the EOI process to identify commercially and technically viable approaches for delivering the solar plant.
The NT is made up of three regulated grids based around its biggest population centres – Darwin and Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs – but these are not interconnected and have had limited success integrating utility-scale renewables, despite solar being easily the cheapest source of new supply.
Three solar farms – at Katherine, Batchelor and Manton Dam – totalling around 45 MW and all owned by Italian energy giant ENI were notoriously left idle for some five years after being built, due to grid connection complications that made commercial operation unworkable, without more battery storage.
