Yuendumu

The solar power station at Yuendum was one of  three installed in

remote indigenous communities in Australia’s Northern Territory and

were constructed using Solar Systems’ CS500 concentrator dish systems.

The project was conceived by Solar Systems and is now producing electricity to complement the existing diesel generators under a long term power purchase agreement with Power and Water Corporation, the local electricity supplier.

‘The installation and construction of the Hermannsburg, Lajamanu and Yuendumu site cost a combined $7MM, offset’

The projects combined locations will save 420,000 litres of diesel and 1550 tonnes of Greenhouse emissions each year.

The project won a prestigious Engineering Excellence award in 2005.

Configuration

Yuendum consists of 10 x CS500 units with a rated output of 240kW

The CS500 dishes are installed at all three locations, and each of the 30 dishes are equipped with 24% efficient silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) cells.

Each power station has a closed loop cooling system that rejects heat into the adjacent sewerage ponds. This
arrangement provides additional evaporation from the ponds to reduce the need for overflow pumping.

The control system incorporates a large battery bank which smoothes the output profile from the power station.

This protects the diesel generators from sudden changes in load, giving the generators time to react when a cloud passes in front of the sun.

Electricity is converted to grid-quality alternating current and exported to the local electricity grid, providing extra capacity and support to the diesel generators.

The solar power stations CS500 were designed to provide around 30% of the daytime electrical requirements of the community. In practice, when the community requirement is low the power stations have provided up to 50% of the daytime load.