AEMO Services has selected five more energy infrastructure projects, representing 750MW of renewable energy generation and 524MW (4,192 MWh) of long-duration storage to be fast-tracked under the state’s Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap incentive scheme.
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The successful bidders include:
- Squadron Energy — Uungula Wind Farm (400MW)
- Neoen Australia — Culcairn Solar Farm (350MW)
- A-CAES NSW — Silver City Energy Storage (200MW/1,600MWh)
- Lightsource Development Services Australia — Goulburn River BESS (49MW/392MWh)
- Ark Energy — Richmond Valley BESS (275MW/2,200MWh).
AEMO Services executive general manager Paul Verschuer said the results of the latest tender round out a significant year for AEMO Services and the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap tender program.
“AEMO Services has delivered three highly successful tenders throughout 2023, helping to bring-forward more than $8.5 billion private sector investment in NSW’s future energy system,” Verschuer said.
“Participation in our tenders demonstrates the market value and fit of our innovative financial contract, which offers projects exposure to market upside and reduces risk and cost to consumers compared to traditional schemes.
“AEMO Services will continue to deliver biannual tenders for at least the next decade, incentivising private capital for new infrastructure investment by 2030 to meet the state’s minimum targets of 12GW of renewable energy and 2GW of long-duration storage over that timeframe.”
Verschuer said the state tender program was driving confidence in the NSW energy transition with both investors and consumers.
“We provide those projects with flexible financial security they need to accelerate their completion,” he said.
“From the strength of the response to the first year of our tender process, it’s clear that the insurance provided by the LTESA contract is working to address a key market risk that might otherwise delay or discourage investors from participating in the transition.
“Some proponents also bid to reduce the incentives in their contract to reflect their specific needs, which reduces the final cost and risk to electricity consumers and validates the competitive mechanism we’ve put in place.
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“We are looking forward to building on the momentum of this year, and we encourage prospective tender bidders to contact us to learn more about the immense investment opportunity the NSW energy transition presents.”
