Kennards Hire Helps Power Cleanpeak Solar Farm

The clean energy transition is well and truly underway across Australia, with wind and solar farm projects quickly gathering pace, driven by forward thinking companies such as CleanPeak Energy.

While the company offers renewable energy solutions in metropolitan and urban environments through commercial and industrial rooftop solar generation, battery assets and other services, designing and constructing solar farms is another of CleanPeak’s key capabilities.

It has successful solar farms in:
» Mugga Lane, ACT
» Williamsdale, ACT
» Mt Majura, ACT
» Karratha, WA
» Moama, NSW
» Hay, NSW
» and most recently, Wangaratta, VIC.

Plus there are a number of others in the pipeline.

PROJECT IMPACT

Located on a sprawling 72-hectare site, the Wangaratta solar farm will be completed in the coming months, and once up and running, deliver around 75 giga-watt hours of sustainable electricity per year – enough to power around 30,000 homes – through 40 megawatts of solar generation capacity. To generate this sort of output, over 71,000 solar panels have been installed on site – even more impressive, they’re fully automated and track the daily east-west movement of the sun to maximise power generation. The clean power will also save almost 60,000 tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere every year. Another important component of the project is power storage using batteries; this is being undertaken in two stages, which will ultimately see a 22-megawatt hour battery and a 100-megawatt hour battery commissioned at the location. 

HOW KENNARDS HIRE HELPED

Construction on the project began in March 2024 and involved electrical contractors, as well as mechanical and civil teams, overseen by CleanPeak. It’s not the first time the company had called on the services of Kennards Hire, as CleanPeak Energy Project Administrator for Wangaratta Solar Farm, Sophie Blew, explained. 

“On this project Kennards Hire was initially mobilised by one of our contractors, but as construction progressed, we took over as principal contractor and began working with Kennards Hire directly – we’d also used Kennards Hire on our Moama solar farm project late last year so were familiar with what the company could offer us,” Sophie said. Kennards Hire supplied a range of equipment and assets for the project allowing a smooth construction process. These included site sheds, generators, fuel tanks for construction equipment as well as water tanks for amenities.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

Along with having a broad range of hire equipment available that gave CleanPeak the convenience of sourcing everything needed through a single point of contact, Sophie said Kennards Hire service was outstanding.

“At the start of the project Kennards Hire representatives were on site to ensure everything was ready for us, and close communication continued as the project progressed. There was also transparency of costings and no hidden surprises; this is important for a business. Overall Kennards Hire was just a pleasure to deal with and we will definitely call on them again for future projects.”

‘Kennards Hire is extremely accommodating, easy to communicate with and very responsive. Often we may need equipment ‘yesterday’, and they are really good at assisting and meeting the short timeframes – nothing is too much trouble.’ - Sophie Blew, CleanPeak Energy Project Administrator for Wangaratta Solar Farm