The CSTPS adjoins the Collinsville Coal Mine and is sited on land owned by RAC. The plant itself covers approximately 40 ha and uses existing power transmission facilities, auxiliary fuel, water supply and waste water disposal facilities that were part of the old Collinsville Power Station infrastructure. The land is not flood‐affected and preliminary geotechnical work has identified no adverse issues that would not make this an
appropriate site. The project will connect to the Ergon 33 kV transmission network at an existing switchyard.
RAC is currently undertaking a program to monitor solar energy at the project site. This has been operating for 16 months and when completed, it will be calibrated against long term solar data sourced from satellites, and compared with real time satellite data coinciding with the monitoring period. In the interim, until this monitoring program is finished, satellite data for the period 1999 through 2006 was obtained from 3Tier and
was used to define the solar resource for this study. Design annual Direct Normal Insolation (DNI) for this study was 2,124 kWh/m2/day.