1-Megawatt Solar Hybrid Plant Installed In Just 7 days (Time-Lapse Video)

March 28th, 2015 by Cynthia Shahan

A time-lapse video recording of the swift installation of a 1-megawatt redeployable solar-diesel hybrid power plant turns a week into seconds, highlighting the innovative modular technology.

Laing O’Rourke developed the innovative modular technology. RenewEconomy reports that it was delivered, set up, unpacked, and fully operational within seven days.

Presently in full operation, RenewEconomy reports that the solar power plant was unveiled just last week in Combabula, regional Queensland. It is the first of its kind in the world. The pilot-scale plant is the product of an ARENA-backed project. ARENA intends to make it more affordable and more easily accomplished to provide remote Australian communities and industrial sites with off-grid renewable energy generation.

Diminishing insecurity of risks associated with projects in remote and regional Australia, ARENA (the Australian Renewable Energy Agency) considers the off-site construction and rapid packing and unpacking capability of the technology will potentially reduce costs.

RenewEconomy reports:

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the Combabula plant provided a clear demonstration of a versatile alternative to costly and heavy polluting diesel-powered generators.

Each redeployable hybrid plant is expected to power multiple successive off-grid users, allowing them to benefit from the advantages of solar without committing to a permanent installation.

Hybrids offer interesting complements to the clean power, renewable equation. Of course, there are also fully clean hybrid plants. See “Study Finds Wind-Solar Hybrid Power Plants Are Twice As Efficient,” which explains, “One of the strong benefits is the construction of these types of power plants do not require grid expansion since the plants generate wind and solar power at different intervals and during complementary seasons. This helps ensure that the level of energy being fed into the grid is more steady than that of wind or photovoltaic power plants alone.”

An analysis Joshua S Hill covered for CleanTechnica in “Hybrid Energy Systems Key To Future Of Renewable Energy,” reports, “much of the weather-reliant issues could be done away with by introducing enhanced energy storage technology and by developing what are called ‘hybrid’ energy systems — energy systems which, in tandem with a smart grid, combine two forms of energy generation so one is able to cover the other.” We’ll see where this option out of Australia leads.

Related Story: ARENA Looks To Accelerate Renewable Hybrid Power Plants









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