The analysis is the first piece of in-depth costing and scheduling works to be conducted on the former Perrottet government’s renewable energy and transmission plan.
It was designed in 2020 as a road map to ensure that the lights stayed on as coal-fired stations including Eraring and Liddell prepared to switch off.
Under the plan, each renewable energy hub will consist of potentially dozens of wind and/or solar farms and even offshore wind projects, surrounded by transmission infrastructure to transport the power.
Private bidders have been vying for the right to build and run the infrastructure through a reverse auction process. But the government will spearhead the process to build the poles and wires to connect the zones to the grid and broader transmission projects including HumeLink and the VNI Link connecting into Victoria.
In the case of the Central West Orana renewable energy zone, the government has picked a consortium including Endeavour Energy as its preferred bidder to build the poles and wires infrastructure.
Ms Sharpe said the price of transmission infrastructure and preliminary works to connect the zone to the broader network had originally been costed at about $400 million to $800 million but it was now expected to cost about $3.2 billion.
She said the state’s energy provider and administrator, EnergyCo, would have access to $1.2 billion to help finance preliminary works and transmission infrastructure in each of the zones, which would then be repaid by the private generator that agreed to build the project.
The state has already conducted a reverse auction for power generators in the Central West Orana REZ near Dubbo, and the New England zone will be the next to go to auction.
Tender process
Projects that have won support so far under the tender process include ACEN Australia’s proposed 400MW Stubbo solar farm to be built near Dubbo, and the 720MW New England solar farm, also by ACEN. Goldwind Australia’s 275MW Coppabella wind farm was also successful.
Four major coal-fired power generators are scheduled to shut down in NSW in the next 10 years, including the Eraring power station on Lake Macquarie, which is expected to close seven years ahead of schedule in 2025. After that, Vales Point will shut down in 2028, followed by Bayswater in 2032.
By that stage, the state would have access to about 50 gigawatts of energy including more than 11GW of wind, 6GW of large-scale solar, 5GW of rooftop solar and an additional 6.5GW of long-duration, large and small-scale storage and about 0.5GW of firming capacity, Ms Sharpe said.
The plan, unveiled by the Berejiklian government in 2020, relies on using financial contracts with selected renewable energy and storage developers to encourage private investors to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Under the deals agreed to, wind power will be provided at a price of less than $50 per megawatt-hour in 2023 real prices. The strike price for solar generation is less than $35/MWh.