The Aboriginal community of Yungngora in the West Kimberley (WA) is now powered partly by solar, after the installation of solar panels by Horizon Power.
The new solar panels deliver 200 kilowatts of power and a short term energy storage system have been installed at the community, formerly known as Noonkanbah station.
The solar farm was commissioned in November 2015 and has been running smoothly.
Horizon Power’s power system services project director, Brett Whisson, said the solar farm has been welcomed by the community because using energy from the sun meant less diesel fuel would need to be burned to power the community’s electricity needs.
Horizon Power contracted MPower to design and install the fit for purpose technical specification.
The solar farm comprises 200 kW of PV panels and includes a “solar smoothing energy storage” (SSES system), which is equipped with battery energy storage to allow the system to ride through cloud events while another diesel generator is started to respond to the loss of solar power. Collectively the PV and SSES will reduce the amount of fuel that needs to be burned for the community’s power needs.
Mr Whisson said, “The system has been designed to maximise the use of all of the available solar energy in order to reduce the amount of diesel being burned which will also result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions.”
MPower said Yungngora was another milestone in the company’s focus on renewable energy for off grid applications.
“Completing the Yungngora project leave us with a sense of satisfaction, not only for helping remote communities become less reliant on fossil fuels but also having an Australian–based MPower engineering team continue to progress this important technology,” MPower projects managing director, Anthony Csillag said.
