Australian solar technology company 5B Australia Pty Ltd has bagged a contract to supply its Maverick racking technology for a 10 GW Solar Farm with 20 to 30 GWh storage capacity project being set up by Sun Cable. The Maverick mounting system technology is a modular, pre-fabricated and plug & play solution aimed at deploying solar faster at lower costs.
5B says it will deploy a special variant of its Maverick solution, called Big Field Maverick (BFM) for the project at record low cost and speed aiming for over 15 MW per day or 1 MW per person per week. BFM targets mega and giga scale projects.
Unlike single-axis trackers, which are often used for ground-mount solar power plants, the Maverick solution are pre-fabricated solar modules on racks that come connected and packed to the site, where it is unfolded using a tractor.
The first block of the Maverick technology was deployed onsite in July 2019 to monitor solar and meteorological conditions of the site. Actual construction is scheduled to begin in late 2023 with a commissioning timeline of late 2027.
5B has its pilot production in Sydney and mass production facility in Adelaide in partnership with IXL Solar. These Maverick blocks will be delivered on site through Darwin-Adelaide railway line. Overall, the project is expected to create between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs.
"The construction related logistical challenges are extensive. 5B's centrally pre-fabricated and rapidly deployed Maverick solution, provides the simplest and lowest risk means to manage a project of this scale, especially in the remote Australian Outback," said Sun Cable CEO David Griffin.
Being developed at the Tennant Creek location in Northern Territory of Australia, the project was accorded Major Project Status by the government in July 2019. Power generated by the facility will be supplied to Darwin and Singapore markets through a high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line (see 10 GW Solar+Storage Farm Planned In Australia).