Colin Gillam, SSE’s project director, met with South Australian Premier, Jay Weatherill on Tuesday 4 April to give him a tour of Whyalla’s 6MW solar power plant. The Premier spoke highly of the project’s potential to help ‘power the state into the future.’[1]

The 6MW plant is on track to supply power to the grid as early as June 2017, while the eventual goal is for it to generate up to 150MW.

SSE has also bid to build a portion of a large-scale grid-scale storage system due for construction in South Australia.

Bidding begins for state’s grid-scale battery storage system

The battery storage system will be the biggest of its kind in Australia and is part of the state’s new $550 million energy security plan. It’s expected to be capable of storing 100MW of solar and wind energy.[2]

A number of high profile bidders have expressed interest in building the battery storage system, including Tesla’s Elon Musk.[3] The capacity of the system is likely to be distributed throughout the state but SSE is hoping to secure the Whyalla-based segment.

‘We know Whyalla, so we’re bidding to build the Whyalla-based battery storage system. We have the land and the local connections’, Colin explains.

Visit the Whyalla Solar Farm project site for regular updates on the project