NQ’s shining light
Construction under way for farm with a brighter future
THE pile- drivers are hammering at Sun Metals.
Construction began this month on the first of the region’s big solar farms with about 130 people working on the zinc refinery’s Stuart site yesterday delivering the $ 199 million project.
Employment is expected to grow to more than 200 as contractor RCR ramps up the huge operation of driving steel piles, assembling steel table frames and attaching solar modules over 100ha of coastal plain.
Sun Metals solar project manager Lance Moody said it was a huge but mostly repetitive task of assembling the 125 megawatt AC power station.
It will require 131,000 piles, 10,500 table frames and 1,265,000 solar panel modules.
“The RCR workforce is ramping up. They will be at peak workforce within a few weeks,” Mr Moody said.
“It’s a large project but very repetitive. There’s a number of electricians, electrical engineers, trade assistants and labourers. Most of the workforce is coming from Townsville.”
Sun Metals is among the first of what could potentially grow to more than 2000 megawatts of renewable power projects – well over the com- bined summer time peak demand of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay.
For Sun Metals, the state’s secondlargest power consumer, the farm will be able to provide all of its day- time needs but only around 30 per cent of its overall requirements.
Mr Moody told a forum in Townsville earlier this year that extraordinary spikes and increases in wholesale energy prices had prompted Sun Metals to develop the farm.
When complete, Sun Metals will be the largest single site user of solar electricity in Australia.
Mr Moody said the generation would have the capacity to meet all of the refinery’s requirements through the day but that grid prices would determine how much was used.
When grid prices exceed $ 1000 to $ 2000 per megawatt hour, it made sense for the refinery to export to the grid.
Other benefits included a 5 per cent boost in production and earnings from large scale generation certificates issued by the Federal Government.
Construction is expected to be completed by April next year but power could begin to be drawn from January or February when summer grid prices hit their peak.