A project that will integrate 3.9MW of solar generation and a 3MW/5MWhr battery with 4.5MW of diesel generation to balance sustainability with reliability is to be built for the town of Jabiru in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Juwi Renewable Energy Pty Ltd, a Brisbane-based subsidiary of EDL (a leading global producer of sustainable distributed energy), will construct a ‘high penetration’ solar farm as part of EDL’s hybrid power solution.

EDL will own and operate the Jabiru Hybrid Renewable Project which, after completion, is expected to meet the town’s annual electricity needs with energy that is at least 50% from renewable sources.

Construction will begin shortly, with the diesel power station due to be completed by the end of 2021, with the solar farm and battery installation comeing online in early 2022.

Dave Manning, Juwi’s global head of hybrid, said: “Hybrid power solutions offer the potential to significantly reduce the amount of fossil fuel power generation within the Kakadu National Park. Juwi looks forward to working again with EDL and the local community of Jabiru to deliver sustainable energy for the region.”

In addition to the development and operation of wind and solar parks, an important growth area for the Juwi group is the construction of hybrid power plants for non-grid industries such as mines.

In such projects, PV and/or wind power plants are supplemented with storage units. These can then be ‘intelligently’ integrated into existing island networks using the ‘Juwi Hybrid IQ’ software developed by Juwi.