The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced $25 million in funding to Equans Solar & Storage to trial a portfolio of innovations in real-world environments which could help lower the cost of building and operating large-scale solar projects in Australia.
The funding supports a three-year initiative, called the Lightspeed project, that will test and deploy innovative technologies across Equans' solar and storage pipeline to improve productivity, reduce costs and strengthen the competitiveness of Australian solar.
The first innovation to be tested will be the Nextpower Ranger, an autonomous inspection robot. The trial will mark the Ranger's first use at an Australian solar farm and help demonstrate its benefits to build market confidence.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said Australia must continue to find new ways to lower the cost of building and operating renewable energy projects as deployment scales up.
"As Australia builds the renewable energy systems needed to support net zero, innovation will play a critical role in reducing costs and improving productivity across the sector," said Mr Miller.
"By supporting the trial of multiple innovation projects under a single funding portfolio we can test technologies more quickly in real-world environments and at a greater scale."
"This approach allows promising innovations to move from concept to real-world deployment faster, while ensuring lessons learned can be shared across the industry."
The Lightspeed project aims to test and deploy up to 10 innovative technologies across five key areas: civil works, mechanical works, electrical works, operations and maintenance, and digital coordination that could collectively reduce the levelised cost of energy of solar PV.
Areas of focus include construction robotics, automated piling systems and autonomous inspection solutions that have the potential to reduce labour-intensive activities, improve construction efficiency, increase productivity, and enhance project delivery.
A similar 'portfolio-style approach', where multiple innovations are trialled together, is already generating early learnings from Fortescue's Pilbara Solar Innovation Hub, which is trialling solar innovations across Fortescue's Pilbara sites. The Hub has produced its first milestone report and a dedicated Built Robotics trial report, sharing insights from the trial of autonomous piling technology at the Cloudbreak Solar Farm in remote Pilbara conditions.
Equan's Lightspeed project will build on this model by creating further opportunities to test, validate and share learnings from emerging technologies that can improve how large-scale solar projects are designed, built and operated.
"Facing the volume of renewable assets to be built in a near future, following the cost reduction trends and considering grid integration restrictions of solar energy, robotics supported by digital and IA will definitively contribute to achieve these goals.
"Consequently, Lightspeed Solar project proposed by Equans Solar & Storage and supported by ARENA is a tremendous opportunity to pioneer in emerging technologies for site constructions and operations, as well as scaling up the use of automated machines and systems," noted Benoit Froidurot, Innovation & Development Director at Equans Solar & Storage.
