AGL Energy has completed the installation of a solar microgrid with a 5.4 MWh battery energy storage system in Australia, supporting the transition of a commercial orchard’s operations from diesel to renewable energy.
Australia’s AGL Energy said the microgrid, consisting of a 4.8 MW solar farm and a 4.2 MWh battery energy storage system, will enable the use of diesel generators at Australian Farming Services’ (AFS) Cadell Orchards in New South Wales (NSW). ) will decrease.
At the heart of the renewable energy system, spread across a 5 hectare block on the commercial almond farm near Balranald in south-west NSW, is the PowerCache battery energy storage system, supplied by Australian manufacturer Powertec.
The Victorian company said the system will form a utility-quality grid, providing fault current and immediate operating reserves, while smoothing and storing intermittent solar energy.
Controlled as a microgrid by more than twenty of the company’s PaDECS edge controllers, the network can, among other things, autonomously reconfigure itself to adapt to operational scenarios and achieve high fault tolerance.
The system will supply 5.2 GWh of renewable energy to the site, reducing the horticultural business’s dependence on diesel generators and reducing the orchard’s CO2 emissions by up to 4,700 tonnes annually.
AFS Chief Executive Officer David Armstrong said the 1,690 hectare site is not connected to the electricity grid, but relies on electric pumps which until now have been powered by diesel generators.
“We manage more than 4,400 hectares and almost 1.5 million trees in some of Australia’s most productive horticultural regions,” he said. “Work with AGLwe will be able to generate clean and renewable solar energy, which will reduce our emissions, reduce our dependence on diesel fuel by 85% and save up to 40% on energy costs every year. Our orchard will also benefit from energy price certainty and improved energy resilience and reliability.”
AGL will own and operate the microgrid under a long-term power purchase agreement.
The Cadell microgrid is one of them three sustainable energy systems which AGL will install at AFS farms in NSW.
In addition to Cadell’s microgrid, AGL is developing a 6.5 MW solar array and 5.1 MWh battery energy storage system at the nearby Canally Almond Orchard. The gen-tailer is also designing a third microgrid that will be installed at AFS’s Murray Downs Processing Plant.
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