The Beryl Solar Farm, which completed construction in June 2019, is located in New South Wales, Australia. For this project, which involved 260,000 solar panels, ArcelorMittal Projects supplied their innovative solar tracking technology so that, like sunflowers, the panels could follow the sun and so maximise energy generation throughout the day. The package included a full range of services including plant design support, logistics, training, on-site management support and commissioning.

The 110 MWp solar plant, built by Downer, the leading Australian Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) firm, is enormous. It is equipped with 531 Exotrack® HZ V2 trackers, controlling 8,607 rotating tables that support the photovoltaic panels. It covers an area equivalent to 500 football playgrounds. End to end the structural beams span a distance in excess of 1000 kilometers.

The trackers were produced by ArcelorMittal Projects in Switzerland and France, with about 30% of the components manufactured by Alliance Metal Changzhou, part of ArcelorMittal Projects.

Thanks to its balanced design and structural stiffness, Exotrack® HZ V2 offers greater reliability and limited operating expense. It is a centralised tracker with only 4 motors per MWp, with high flexibility enabling installation on uneven ground and unrivalled simplicity resulting in a smooth and fast installation.

ArcelorMittal Projects’s Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)-friendly tracking technology significantly increases the plant's energy yield and thereby contributes to providing clean and safe electricity to Australian households and public transportation. The project brings significant economic and environmental benefits to the New South Wales region including:

  • Providing power for the NSW government-owned North West Sydney Metro train lines (another project involving ArcelorMittal)
  • Production of enough energy to power 25,000 homes
  • Reduction of more than 167,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year
  • Creation of new jobs

Commissioning took place in May 2019, extraordinarily just 12 months after the contract was signed. The farm was completed in June 2019.