Overview
South Gippsland Water (SGW) has pledged to achieve 15% reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2025 and 100% reduction by 2050. SGW power usage constitutes a significant portion of their emissions. They would like to assess multiple options for renewable energy.
Challenge
In total SGW have 140 sites – many of which are suitable of hosting embedded renewable generation or utility-scale generation, however, currently they have limited renewable energy generation on their sites. They have asked Middleton Group to help them assess the feasibility of multiple renewable energy options for several of their sites.
Solution
Middleton Group shortlisted seven sites based on:
– On-site energy consumption
– Available area
Each site was assessed for the viability of the following technologies: Utility-scale wind, Solar PV, Biogas and Hydro.
These technologies were then assessed on different scales: Multi-Megawatt, No-export – cover minimum site consumption and Assessed value of adjusting system processes, e.g. shifting from off-peak pumping to pumping aligned with generation.
Considerations were also taken with respect to technical feasibility, planning constraints, GHG Emissions Reductions, payback period and financial returns
Results
Multiple options were considered by Middleton Group and the results were that solar was the most feasible source of renewable energy, while hydro, biogas and wind were not feasible options. Further research and evaluation of the solar option proved that the embedded solar option was the most feasible and profitable renewable energy to be implemented for South Gippsland Water sites. Middleton Group then presented a detailed plan to help SGW to implement embedded solar into multiple sites.