The officers have recommended the council approve a planning permit for the $150 million project at its meeting on Tuesday night.

The project will involve the installation of 700,000 photovoltaic panels across a 554 hectare site. It is a joint venture partnership between Infinergy Pacific and the family of Corangamite Cr Bev McArthur, which owns the site on Meningoort Road.

Cr McArthur is not taking part in the council’s decision on the application because of a conflict of interest.

The solar farm will the capacity to generate 200 megawatts, enough energy to power about 80,000 homes.

Project opponent Andrew Duynhoven, who lives near the site, said the solar farm would be the size of Camperdown, plus a quarter, and its “immense” scale was one of the main concerns.

Other opponents of the project have expressed concern about glare and glint from its solar panels, its fire risk, its visual and landscape impact and the loss of agricultural land.

But planning officers responded that the CFA believed the fire risk could be appropriately managed and a landscape and visual impact assessment indicated the impact would be low.

The assessment said the distance of the farm from elevated viewing sites in the district such as the Camperdown Botanic Gardens meant the impact on the landscape was acceptable. The visual impact would also be mitigated by the plan for a 20 metre wide vegetation screen along most of the solar farm’s boundaries.

The project would also not result in the permanent loss of agricultural land and could be returned to its agricultural use at the end of the solar farm’s 30-year life, the officers said. 

They said the project also supported the region’s efforts to back renewable energy and would create 12 ongoing jobs.  

The proposal calls for the farm to connect to the national electricity grid via a high voltage 220kV transmission line that currently tranverses the site, eliminating the need for a new transmission line.