A proposed $150m solar farm near Bookaar has received 80 objections and only five in support of the project that is touted to bring 150 jobs to the region during construction.
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The project will now go before Corangamite Shire Council, which has switched its scheduled September 25 meeting from Skipton back to Camperdown because of the interest in the project.
It is the first solar farm planned for the south-west, a region that has been home to renewable energy projects since Australia’s first wind farm began operating at Codrington in 2001.
Since then it has become a hot spot for wind energy, with the region accounting for about 40 per cent of the state’s wind turbines that are either already operating or in the pipeline.
While there is only one solar farm proposed for the south-west so far, across Australia it is a different story.
In Victoria, there are three solar farms in operation with one under construction and 37 proposed, according to statistics from solar marketing analyst company SunWiz.
Australiawide there are 35 operating, 26 under construction and hundreds more proposed, the bulk of them in Queensland.
The farms range in size from as little as 9 megawatts to one as big as 500 megawatts in Queensland. The Bookaar farm would be 200 megawatts.
Last year was a record year for solar, and this year is on track to be another record year with 35GW of solar farms in the planning and development pipeline, according to the Australian Photovoltaic Institute.
Objectors to the Bookaar project say the farm would be among one of the largest in the country.
Infinergy Energy project manager Richard Seymour said there were larger ones in northern Australia that were either in the construction or planning phase. “There’s plenty of big solar farms in Australia,” he said.
If the project is approved, construction of the farm, which includes 700,000 solar panels, would begin in July 2019 and generate enough renewable energy to power 80,000 homes a year.
It would employ 12 full-time staff when operational.
Mr Seymour said he was aware there had been a lot of submissions to the council and the company was taking them very seriously.
He said the company was working on a formal written submission in response.
Mr Seymour said many of the concerns raised in the objections had already been dealt with in the company’s planning submission. “We recognise we’ve got some work to do to communicate those ideas better,” he said.
Another community drop-in session will be held in Camperdown on Wednesday.
The council and developers will also meet on site next week with those who have made submissions.
“We’re confident that we have a great project that has been thoughtfully designed and we’ll be able to address the concerns satisfactorily,” Mr Seymour said.
Battle over $150m project
Objectors have rallied together in a united push to lobby Corangamite Shire Council over the proposed Bookaar solar farm.
The group wants the site kept as agricultural land and is concerned about fire safety and the impact on the nearby Ramsar-listed wetlands.
Bookaar-Camperdown Community Action Group deputy chair Andrew Duynhoven said he was heartened by the number of submissions. “Up until three or four weeks ago, no one knew anything about it and if they did they didn’t realise the sheer size of it,” he said.
“It’s our backyard. We are a dairy industry area, as well as tourism. We are not a power generation area. Given that it’s drought everywhere, we’re actually lush and green with lots of water. We’re actually the food bowl at the moment.”
Group chair Andrew Wilson said the average dairy farm was 250 acres and the project was equivalent to six dairy farms.
While objectors say the location is prime dairy land, Infinergy Energy project manager Richard Seymour said it would take up about a quarter of the property and was on the least productive portion.
“We’re not saying the land is no good,” Mr Seymour said.
He said it covered 0.2 per cent of available agricultural land in the Corangamite Shire, and after 30 years, would be restored to farm land.
The group was also concerned about community safety, fearing that in the event of a fire it could wipe out Camperdown.
Mr Seymour said the company had consulted CFA officials about how to make the site safe.
“If the CFA is not satisfied with what we do, the project will not go ahead,” he said.
“That’s quite a strong message.
“Fire safety is really important to us too.”
Locals are also concerned about how many jobs would go to locals and fear the project would create a short-term rental boom during construction, making it harder for locals in an already tight market
Mr Seymour said many of the jobs would go to locals, and the company had already been contacted about employment opportunities.
Other concerns include run-off, the possibility of the solar farm being sold off and loss of rural views from elevated blocks overlooking the site.
Cr Bev McArthur, whose family members own the land where the development will be built, has taken a leave of absence from the council in the lead up to the state government election where she has been pre-selected by the Liberal Party to run for an Upper House seat.
Mayor Jo Beard said there were still six other councillors who were keen to hear residents’ views.
Households switched on to renewables
Warrnambool homes now produce as much solar energy as the whole of Australia did just a decade ago when household installations started to take off.
There are more people in Warrnambool with rooftop solar panels compared to any other postcode in the south-west, with 1448 homes producing six megawatts of power.
That’s the same amount that was produced in the entire country at the end of 2005, according to statistics provided by Australian Photovoltaic Institute.
However, that number equates to 10.8 per cent of households which is below the state average of 15.9 per cent.
Neighbouring Wangoom and Ballengeich has the highest number of solar installations with almost 26 per cent of dwellings using solar, and in Caramut a quarter of dwellings have solar.
The south-west as a whole has embraced rooftop solar with 14 per cent of dwellings across the region tapping into the renewable energy source, just below the state average.
That’s around 6391 homes producing 26 megawatts of solar.
Statistics show that 96 per cent of solar installations are below 10 kilowatts, which indicates they are likely to be mostly residential rooftops, rather than businesses.
In Camperdown’s postcode, where a large-scale commercial solar farm producing 200 megawatts has been proposed, there is solar on 295 rooftops, about 13 per cent, which produce 1.3 megawatts of power.
Those figures across the region are likely to grow if Premier Daniel Andrews is re-elected after pledging a new Solar Homes program last month that could see solar panels installed on 650,000 homes over 10 years.
Under the $1.24 billion program, the government says a typical Victorian household could expect to save up to $890 a year on their electricity bills.
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