South Australia’s largest water and sewerage services supplier has become the latest in Australia to turn to renewables to minimise its electricity costs, announcing plans to commission a commercial-scale solar and storage system at its Crystal Brook Workshop site.
In a Request for Tender launched late last week, SA Water Corporation said it was seeking to build a grid-connected, rooftop solar PV system of more than 100kW, along with a 50kWh battery storage system and “smart controls.”
The company, which manages more than 27,000km of water mains, including 9,266 km in the Adelaide metropolitan area, said it was installing the solar and storage system to manage periods of high electricity prices, and to ensure safe and sustainable delivery of water to customers.
“The proposed system shall be behind the meter, and designed to minimise electricity costs via the ability to dispatch stored energy as required,” the tender request said.
“The system should have the ability to smooth grid supplied energy and also to use stored energy on site or export back to the grid.
“Provision of system integration with remotely operated control and energy monitoring interfaces are to be included as part of the system design.”
SA Water Corporation is just one of many water and waste management utilities around the country making the shift to renewables.
As reported on One Step Off The Grid, the energy intensive industry is increasingly turning to solar and/or wind energy to lower costs and help guarantee supply.
In the regional Victorian city of Portland, Wannon Water’s water and sewerage treatment plant will soon be powered entirely by wind energy, with plans for the construction of an 800kW wind turbine revealed in May.
And in March, also in regional Victoria, North East Water launched a tender to install 43kW of solar panels and 40kW of battery storage at its Yakandandah facility.
In Queensland, the City of Gold Coast is proposing to install a series of floating solar PV arrays on its network of wastewater ponds – both to help power the city’s wastewater treatment plants and to cut evaporation from the ponds.
Applications for the SA Water Corporation solar and storage project can be lodged here. Tenders close at 2pm on Thursday July 20.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
