Rottnest Island’s famous wind turbine will soon have company, in the form of a 600kW solar farm.
The West Australian reports the Federal and Western Australian governments are partnering with Hydro Tasmania to build a solar facility, which could be operating by late next year.
The West Australian states the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will provide up to $4.8 million in funding for the project, with the remainder coming from the State Government.
Hydro Tasmania is well-acquainted with island projects; with facilities on Flinders and King Island. A few days ago, Hydro Tasmania announced its King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project (KIREIP) provided all of the island’s energy needs through renewables for a continuous period of nearly 33 hours.
Combined with Rottnest’s wind turbine, the pair of clean energy power stations will generate almost half of Rottnest Island’s electricity requirements, slashing the amount of diesel needing to be used on the island.
“Reducing the amount of diesel used on Rottnest Island makes sense, not only from an economic perspective, but also as part of the island’s long-term focus on sustainability,” said Rottnest Island Authority chief executive Paolo Amaranti.
A significant amount of Rottnest Island’s electricity goes towards desalination of underground water, which its 600kW wind turbine was constructed to help address. Up until the installation of the new wind turbine generator in December 2004, Rottnest Island has been totally reliant on fossil fuels for power generation.
The ‘Rotto’ wind turbine recently shot to prominence after comments from ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who stated wind turbines were “visually awful, they make a lot of noise“. It seems Mr Abbott’s only close-up experience with a wind turbine was on Rottnest Island.
When this came to light, ‘Rotturbine’ took its revenge on Twitter; showing that hell hath no fury like that of a wind turbine scorned.
At the time of writing, Rotturbine was yet to comment on the exciting news of a solar sibling.
According to Energy Matters, Rottnest Island receives solar irradiation levels of around 5.45 kilowatt hours per square metre daily. Currently, there are just 3 solar PV installations on the island, totaling 9.20 kW of capacity.
Rottnest Island is located 18 kilometres west of Fremantle and covers 19 square kilometres in land area.
Image Credit: Mark
