New northern solar farm to be built on land laid out for irrigation

Ganawarra Shire Council approved the project, at Horfield, eight kilometres from Cohuna, in September last year.

Council officers noted the land adjoining the site was predominantly used for irrigated pastures and cropping.

Ganawarra mayor Brian Gibson said while the land in question was within the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District, it didn’t contain any irrigation infrastructure.

““It falls within our plannning scheme, it meets all the criteria,” Cr Gibson said.

At this year’s state conference Victorian Farmers Federation delegates supported a motion to call on the government to exclude the development of solar farms on land with a water use licence.

Cohuna was one of the three wining solar farms in the Victorian Government’s Renewable Energy Reverse Auction.

The government has awarded the Cohuna farm, one at Carwarp and another at Winton, a “support agreement,” to ensure revenue certainty.

Melbourne’s Leeson Group will co-develop the Cohuna project with Enel Green Power Australia

It is expected to generate approximately 77GWh of renewable electricity each year

The initial application to council stated the total site had an approximate area of 128 hectares with the solar development covering about 82ha.

Council officers recommended whilst the proposed project was within the shire’s Farming Zone, a renewable energy facility could be considered.

Some of the purposes of the Farming Zone are “to provide for the use of land for agriculture”, “to ensure than non-agricultural uses, including dwellings, do not adversely affect the use of land for agriculture’ and ‘to encourage the retention of employment and population to support rural communities”.

“Although part of the land will be for the proposed solar farm, this is an allowable use and a significant part of the farm will still be retained for farming purposes,” the officer’s report said

“The amount of land used for solar farms compared to the Farming Zone is insignificant.”

Cr Gibson said the shire would make decisions on solar farm proposals on the basis of whether they met the council’s planning scheme and the productivity of the land.

“The GMID covers a lot of land that is no longer viable for agriculture, or used for agriculture,” Cr Gibson said.

In some cases, the land could be used for agriculture, but only at “an extreme cost.”

“The beautiful thing about solar projects is that once they outlive their time, or the company says it is finished, the infrastructure can just be removed and the land returned to its previous state,” Cr Gibson said.

At Carwarp, near Mildura, a solar farm will be build on land currently used for cropping.

Canadian Solar, which has subsidiaries in 20 countries, is building the 120MW plant on 250ha, within Mildura Rural City Council’s boundaries.

Senior project development advisor Shane Mellotte said the company had reached a confidential  agreement with the landholder, to build the farm.

“It’s currently dryland farming, mainly used for wheat, with some legume production,” Mr Mellotte said.

The company was hoping to start construction, early next year.

He said solar farms would become more and more common, as the cost of technology came down.

“That part of Victoria is of strong interest to a number of devlopers, because of the high solar resource there and reasonably proximity to high voltage power lines,” Mr Melotte said.

“It’s definitely an attractive location for these kinds of projects.”

But Mildura Rural City Council has also knocked back applications.

Last month it refused three planning permits for solar farms, saying the applications had “no positive outcomes for agriculture” and “will result in further land being removed (from) agricultural production”. 

Benalla Rural City Council mayor Don Firth said the Winton solar farm, south-west of Wangaratta, was approved, despite ‘minimal’ State government guidelines.

“We would very much appreciate more guidelines, but there weren’t any,” Cr Firth said.

He said the council had really good planning staff, who gave councillors extensive reports on the proposal.

“The prospective land was not prime agricultural land, it was also adjacent to a main substation,” Cr Firth said.

“If you are going to put a solar farm somewhere, that’s probably the best place you could do it.”

The 8MW farm is being built by Spanish company Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), a leading global developer of renewable utility-scale projects.

The company’s fifth large scale project in Australia, the farm will also cover 250ha.

Cr Firth said he knew more applications would soon be brought to the council.

“I know of one very large one, I would deem to be prime cropping land and I would certainly not be voting on that, until the guidelines come through.”

He said he would like to see different types of agricultural land defined.

A cap, limiting the amount of solar and renewable developments, could then be placed on different types of agricultural land.

“We need some discussion, as much as anything, around how much of each type of agricultural and do we need to set aside for renewables.”

Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke has urged proper consultation over new planning regulations, governing the development of solar farms.

A spokeswoman for Planning Minister Richard Wynne said the guidelines, and a report on four planned farms for the greater Shepparton area, would be released soon.

“We're developing clear guidelines for the assessment of solar farm applications in Victoria -- to give locals certainty and support jobs,” the spokeswoman said.

“The Minister is considering a report from an independent planning panel on the four Greater Shepparton applications and will release their report soon.”

Mr Wynne “called in” the applications for the four farms, after objections, largely on the grounds they were proposed for productive irrigation land with extensive, modernised irrigation infrastructure.

The Minister convened an expert planning panel to decide on the four applications, as well as write guidelines for future solar farms.

Mr Jochinke previously said while the farmer group’s main concern was the loss of irrigated land, solar farms also had an impact on valuable grazing country.

He said the development of solar farms needed a long term strategy.

“Guidelines have been promised to us and we want to be actively involved in the discussions around them,” Mr Jochinke said.

“It’s hard to have an informed decision making process when you don’t have planning overlays or the intent for the industry clearly mapped out.”

He said farmers wanted to give surety to both agriculture and the industry, so both sides could know “what’s in an out.

“You are putting in infrastructure that’s going to be there for a long time, so we want to see a long term strategy,” Mr Jochinke said.

The sector had also had the discussion about windfarms.

“Playing catch up is essentially what we are doing and it’s very disappointing.

“It is completely 100 per cent vital we get these regulations out into the public domain, so we can see what’s going on.”

Mr Jochkine was backed by Shepparton Independent MP Suzanna Sheed.

The projects proposed for the Shepparton area are located in Congupna, Lemnos, Tallygaroopna and Tatura East.

Ms Sheed said communities, such as Shepparton, welcomed renewable energy.

“I’m not aware of anyone opposing solar farms, other than they not be placed on valuable irrigation farmland,” Ms Sheed said.

“That is the thrust of the representation we have made to government.”

She said it was vital the government didn’t simply present a finished product.

“It’s really important they get it right,” Ms Sheed said.

“From my point of view, we would like to see those guidelines coming out for consultation, so we can start to have a good look at them and have input into what we think.

“We don’t see it as a negative, we want to contribute to the discussion around the placement of solar farms and the use of certain areas of land.”

The guidelines were very important, but had not been on the agenda.

“It took quite a long time to get the guidelines settled for wind farms,” she said.

“There is a wind farm commissioner and a lot more effort was put in, earlier on, into the whole wind farm issue, because it was more controversial.

“Solar farms jumped up as an issue because of the proposal to build them in this irrigated, highly valuable agricultural footprint, in the Goulburn Valley.”