NORTHERN Victoria’s future in developing solar power as a major energy source was confirmed yesterday with a $290 million investment to build a solar power station capable of powering a city larger than Bendigo.
The partnership between major power supplier TRUenergy and Solar Systems to build the 154-megawatt power station in an undetermined site in north-west Victoria will build on $129 million already committed by State and Federal governments to the project in 2006.
Melbourne-based company Solar Systems, which has already begun work on a $10 million solar test site at Bridgewater, plans to begin work on the $420 million project next year and have it operating by 2013.
The project is expected to produce about 950 jobs and reduce greenhouse emissions by 400,000 tonnes per year.
The 30-hectare Bridgewater site, with its proposed field of mirrors and 75-metre tower, will also give a glimpse of the larger site upon its scheduled September completion.
Solar Systems managing director Dave Holland said the partnership was a major endorsement of their approach to innovation and alternative energy and a vote of confidence in the viability of locating major commercial power facilities in Northern Victoria.
Mr Holland said the company was working on a shortlist of six sites for the power station, with numerous factors being considered, including land geology, the cost and distance of connecting to the power grid, as well as other infrastructure.
He said apart from exposure to sunlight, a power station in northern Victoria offered the advantage of its greater distance from the state’s main power source in the Latrobe Valley.
‘‘One of the great advantages is that is it so far from the source of power generation that it makes more sense to look at alternative local sources,’’ Mr Holland said.
He said power in the grid could lose up to 16 per cent in the grid by the time it reached Mildura from Yallourn, but lost only about one per cent over distances between Kerang and Mildura.
When completed, the largest and most efficient photovoltaic power station in the world will have the capacity to supply about 45,000 homes or a city larger than Bendigo.
He said the partnership, which also involved TRUenergy taking a 20 per cent partnership in Solar Systems, would also enable the company to move into full-scale production of the photovoltaic components at a new manufacturing plant in Abbotsford.
‘‘We are a technology company, not a power generation company interested in selling power in to the grid, so this was always a key part of the plan to develop the project,’’ he said.
TRUenergy managing director Richard McIndoe said the investment was part of a much larger move by the company into solar technology and greenhouse gas-reducing strategies, including a 10-year project with Solar Systems to develop up to one gigawatt of solar power in Asia Pacific nations.