ARENA funds tech to speed up large-scale solar

Renewable energy company Nextracker is receiving up to $4.96 million in ARENA funding to deploy its proprietary solar construction and integrated tracker technologies across multiple solar farms, including the Goulburn River Solar Farm in New South Wales.

Delivered in partnership with solar developers and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors, the project is part of ARENA’s goal to progress ultralow-cost solar by automating the foundation and installation of large-scale solar farms. In doing so, it aims to reduce project risks and the overall cost of delivering renewable energy projects in Australia.

“Ultralow-cost solar is not the solar we know today,” ARENA CEO Darren Miller explained.

“Current solar PV technology is sufficiently mature and cost-effective to deploy at scale. However, much cheaper solar is vital to help to create green export opportunities and support the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors.”

As part of the project, Nextracker will introduce its proprietary solar tracker technology, NX Earth Truss foundation solution, to the Australian market.

Vice President and General Manager of Nextracker Australia Peter Wheale said the company was excited to partner with Australia’s leading developers and EPCs to demonstrate its solar tracker and foundation solutions technology.

“Simplifying and optimising the most labour-intensive phase of solar construction for any soil or terrain condition is a real breakthrough,” he said.

“With over 10 GW of solar trackers already deployed in Australia, we’re excited to bring technology innovation that not only cuts costs and build-time, but also enables projects to succeed in sites that were previously too complex or costly to develop.”

Unlike traditional piling methods that require a multi-step installation process, NX Earth Truss foundations are designed to be installed in a single pass, significantly reducing construction timelines, labour, equipment requirements and ground disturbance.

The technology is attractive to ARENA as it helps overcome barriers to large-scale solar development on hard soils and challenging terrain, making deployment more cost-effective, faster to build and sustainable to scale.

By demonstrating the effectiveness of NX Earth Truss in the Australian market, the project should provide critical data and best practices to accelerate industry-wide adoption of integrated tracker and foundation installation.

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