X-Elio invested $165 million to begin construction of Australia's largest solar park, which will be 200 megawatts
X-Elio has started building Australia's largest solar project,named “Blue Grass”, with a capacity of 200 MW, which will involve an investment of US $200 million (about 165 million euro).
Renewable energy group said the plant will create up to 400 new local jobs starting this month to ensure regulatory and financial licensing approval to start the project.
The plant, 14 km from chinchilla, Queensland, is supported by state and local governments and will be launched in early 2021.
In addition, X-Elio will work with Queensland's power grid provider, PowerPoint, to connect its 132kV grid to power 80000 Queensland homes and provide the state with an estimated 420 gigawatt hours (GWH) of green power. One year later, when the construction of the solar power plant is completed by the end of 2021, it will also deliver new grid connected assets related to the project.
Global solar expert Gransolar Group (GRS) will be the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the project.
The partnership between the two companies is in support of X-Elio's recently announced virtual power purchase agreement (VPP) with salesforce, the first renewable energy purchase agreement for a global technology company in Australia.
Lluis noguera, chief executive of X-Elio, stressed that the progress of the project represented a "great milestone" for the group in Australia. "We are pleased with the announcement of the start of construction on blue grass, which will create jobs in the region and bring vitality to the local economy," he said
In addition to the project, which will reduce CO2 emissions by more than 320000 tons per year, X-Elio continues to expand its business in Australia, and there are also a number of utility scale photovoltaic projects expected to start construction in the next 18 months. These include the Wunghnu project in Victoria and the Forest Glen project in New South Wales.
