A planned solar power facility for Roxby Downs in the South Australia outback would create new jobs and go a long way to solving the problems of expensive energy prices.

The $300 Million project proposed by the Lyon Group would create 100 jobs during construction.  The facility would include about 800,000 solar panels connected to batteries the size of shipping containers.  That kind of storage would give operators the ability to manage the output from the site 24-7, andbring down energy prices.

"The large-scale batteries allow us to manage that power in a more stable manner," Lyon Solar partner David Green told the ABC.  "The larger the batteries and the more batteries we include, the closer it comes to base load."  He added, "For governments to achieve their aspirational targets they're establishing for renewable energy, we have to overcome this issue of turning renewable into stable, base load-type power."

The first stage of the project is to create a 20-megawatt power plant, with minimum two megawatt battery storage.  The second stage would expand that to 100 megawatts with minimum 20 megawatt batteries.  The scheme is the only finalist for SA projects in the current Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funding round.