Central West Orana is NSW’s first REZ at approximately 20,000km2 in size. The project will initially unlock at least 3GW of new network capacity by the mid‑2020s and is expected to bring up to AU$10 billion in private investment.
Arche Energy has been delivering project development services to the REZ since 2022. Matt Richards is the Candidate Foundational Generators (CFG) Coordinator, managing interactions between EnergyCo and the developers who are seeking to bring their renewable projects onto the grid.
He is also on the Transaction Team for procuring transmission infrastructure for the REZ. This involves:
- analysing the energy supply change during the procurement process
- examining the interface between developer projects and the transmission line
- navigating the National Electricity Rules and their application to multiple, concurrent, large-scale renewable connections
- implementing government procurement tender evaluation protocols
- developing project delivery strategies for integration of new transmission with new renewable generation.
Earlier in our involvement, Arche’s George Mellick worked closely with EnergyCo, AEMO and network operators to develop and implement the performance management system for the REZ to cover the 35-year contract term.
George established a mutually acceptable set of performance parameters for both reliability and availability of the network, worked across operations and commercial teams to identify the financial risks of poor performance, and finalised commercial agreements, schedules and financial negotiations to ensure delivery of commercial and maintenance aspects of the project.
Arche is delivering similar services to the New England REZ.