Six major solar installations across 3 Australian states

The sun rises on Australia’s solar generation

Australia is enjoying a boom period with its solar power capacity set to almost double to over 12 GW. Nexans is playing a key role in this growth by supplying specialized power cables for the country’s solar farms. Recently, contracts have been completed for six major new projects in the states of Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales (NSW).

The six cable supply contracts were placed with Nexans Olex by Biosar Australia, a leading global solar farm EPC contractor. They covered the supply of medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) direct current (DC) cables for the following solar farm projects:

• Kiamal
• Susan River
• Childers
• Oakey II
• Nevertire
• Middlemount

The scope of supply covered a wide range of Keylios products including underground 33 kV cables, underground 1,500 V low voltage cables, photovoltaic (PV) under-array cables, underground data cables, inverter to transformer connectors, communication, tracker controls and associated accessories.

We worked with Biosar Australia throughout the design stages of all six projects to provide specialist engineering support, covering standards and specifications as well as cable and system design support. The power and control cabling was manufactured and supplied by our China plant in Yanggu and our Olex plant in Lilydale, Australia, supported by a range of Nexans Olex specialist manufacturing partners.

All the underground power cables incorporate the Nexans Olex EcoTerm™ solution that provides an effective barrier to degradation from termites.

The generating capacity of the six solar farms will total 672 MW, enough electricity to power over 600,000 homes. They were commissioned between 2019 and early 2020 and we are continuing to invest in ongoing cable testing and innovation to meet the requirements of Australia’s renewable energy projects.