Council approves application for Tassie solar power farm

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The northern midlands council has approved a new high tech $500 million crop of solar panels on one of Australia's oldest farms. It's called solar grazing, and the farm will see sheep and more than 600, 000 solar panels living in tandem.

Transcript

00:00 These paddocks have fed livestock in the tens of thousands.

00:06 They've been worked by six generations of the O'Connor family, but times are changing.

00:12 We're looking for longevity.

00:14 If we've been here for nearly 200 years, how do we guarantee to try and stay for another 200 years?

00:21 Sheep will share paddocks with 677,000 individual solar panels across 600 hectares.

00:31 It's renewable energy, and so it's important.

00:34 The Northern Midlands Council has just approved a $500 million solar farm development application at Connerville.

00:42 Peak output to the grid will be 288 megawatts, so we'll power about 70,000 homes throughout a year.

00:51 That power can go into the network at the nearby Palmerston substation.

00:56 We've got an ambition to have up to 5 gigawatts of renewables, and that includes onshore solar, onshore wind and offshore wind.

01:04 At the moment Tasmania imports energy during the middle of the day, and a lot of that comes from solar in Victoria.

01:10 The question is, are Tasmanians ready for more renewable energy projects?

01:15 Solar, wind and batteries take up space.

01:19 They can impact local communities.

01:22 They can affect birds and animals.

01:24 Are people locally willing to compromise for a greener future?

01:29 We have an opportunity to create a lot of new renewable energy projects, to export energy,

01:36 to help the rest of Australia and the world tackle climate change.

01:39 But it will require some compromise.

01:41 compromise.

01:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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