The Central-West Orana REZ is Australia’s first declared renewable energy zone. It will be serviced by transmission network infrastructure procured by the Energy Corporation of NSW (EnergyCo) under a regulated concession model awarded to ACEREZ, a partnership comprising ACCIONA, COBRA and Endeavour Energy. This is the first use of a regulated concession model in New South Wales.
The synchronous condensers are critical pieces of infrastructure in the transmission network for the Central-West Orana REZ, delivering system strength to support the connection of up to 7.7 Gigawatts (GW) of intermittent generation from the renewable energy zone. The Central-West Orana REZ project will initially deliver 4.5 GW of new network capacity by 2028.
As critical long lead items, the synchronous condensers needed to be procured before signing of the project documents with EnergyCo, in a first-of-its-kind process overseen by the Australian Energy Regulator and subject to the New South Wales Government procurement guidelines. Negotiations were with sophisticated international original equipment manufacturers to secure a record-breaking number of synchronous condensers in a market characterised by global high demand and limited supply.
Gilbert + Tobin leveraged its team’s market-leading expertise in transmission, utility-scale renewable energy projects and government procurement to assist ACCIONA COBRA Joint Venture, a joint venture comprising ACCIONA Construction Australia Pty Ltd and COBRA Asia Pacific Pty Ltd, to achieve a successful outcome on the synchronous condensers procurement.
The team included partners Clare Pope and Lesley Sutton with support from special counsel Jen Bradley.
