GE Energy Financial Services, in collaboration with US thin-film producer First Solar and state-owned firm Verve Energy announced their new plans for Australia’s “green energy” future. As the companies claim, a new giant solar project is under way.
The solar farm that the companies want to build is ten times larger than any yet built in the country. It will provide electricity for a desalination plant in Western Australia, which has a mandate to use the energy obtained from renewable sources for all new desalination projects.
The Southern Seawater Desalination Plant has contracted 100 percent of the energy from the Greenough River Solar Farm. It will be capable to produce about 50 gigaliters of potable water every year. The new giant solar plant will also cut about 25,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, the equivalent of taking 5,000 cars off the road.
First Solar will help the project with more than 150,000 thin film modules. “The solar farm will be the first utility-scale PV project in Australia, 10 times larger than any other operating solar project in the country,” says a GE press release.
Having an output of 10-megawatt, the $50 million Greenough River Solar Farm project covers an area of 80 hectares of cleared land. The construction of this solar farm is expected to create around 50 green jobs.
[via Cleantechnica]
