Australia’s move toward merchant solar

While significant module price declines will likely make selling power on the spot market a new reality, making merchant solar stack up is not an easy job. In Australia, the number of merchant PV projects is rising, but wild swings in wholesale power prices, which are increasingly hitting zero or below, have raised eyebrows recently. What are the reasons behind this trend and where is the market heading?

Issue 10-2019

Risen Energy decided to go fully merchant on the AUD 160 million ($108.2 million) 121 MW Yarranlea solar farm in Queensland. It added an advanced energy storage system – a hybrid of lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, with DC loss detection technology – to tackle the duck curve.

Image: Risen Energy

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