Sun Cable - Twiggy & Mike CB funding $210 mil

[sptrawler]

Bottom line is we've got vast areas of land in Australia that aren't good for much at all. Meanwhile transmission lines, even long ones, are absolutely 100% proven technology.

So there's simply no reason to be putting solar farms on prime agricultural land. It's just not sensible unless we're talking about a few panels to run something on the farm.

Trouble is, land use isn't something we're overly good at rationally sorting out......

You and I know applying common sense doesn't come into it, businesses want easy access to HV transmission lines, everyone else wants easy access to compensation, there is no easy outcome.
When the HV infrastructure was first put in, everyone was cheering it on, as it meant an improvement in their standard of living.
Now everyone has that standard of living, an increase in standard of living, can only come through compensation. ?
So it becomes the squeaky hinge issue, do we sacrifice productive land to get private renewable investment, or do we subsidise it to have it relocated to non productive areas and carry the cost of extra HV infrastructure, ah decisions, decisions.
The problem is the Government has set its own timetable, tick tock, I feel a huge pressure build up happening. ?

 

[qldfrog]

Bottom line is we've got vast areas of land in Australia that aren't good for much at all. Meanwhile transmission lines, even long ones, are absolutely 100% proven technology.

So there's simply no reason to be putting solar farms on prime agricultural land. It's just not sensible unless we're talking about a few panels to run something on the farm.

Trouble is, land use isn't something we're overly good at rationally sorting out......

indeed and just so that readers get an idea about what we are talking about:
the average rainfall in Woolooga is 1138mm or 1.1m
so basically twice as much rain than Melbourne in an equatorial climate: a food bowl if one chooses to...

Not only does that means a lot of rainy day with no production but also a lot of good fertile land destroyed

 

[sptrawler]

indeed and just so that readers get an idea about what we are talking about:
the average rainfall in Woolooga is 1138mm or 1.1m
so basically twice as much rain than Melbourne in an equatorial climate: a food bowl if one chooses to...

Not only does that means a lot of rainy day with no production but also a lot of good fertile land destroyed
View attachment 151940

No apparently, as @basilio says, you just grow the stuff underneath the panels, down next to the gnomes, the fairies and the harvesters. ?

 

[qldfrog]

No apparently, as @basilio says, you just grow the stuff underneath the panels, down next to the gnomes, the fairies and the harvesters. ?

well, they do not and the panels are too low for that, i would have thought at least have some sheep to clean the weeds instead of glyphosate the lot, even if a bit too wet an area for sheep but panels were too low.
And that meter rain often fell during storm..with common major hail events or as remembered yesterday, tornadoes every few decades
A pending disaster
and we also have the sunny coast council solar farm on sugarcane farm land...

Solar farm that flooded is backed as wet season looms

Sunshine Coast Council has faith in a solar farm that flooded last summer, as the region faces another torrential wet season. The $50.4m Sunshine Coast Solar Farm was turned offline in February, after the 24ha parcel of land at Valdora was swamped. The 15MW facility was disconnected from the...

www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au

arrrggg
i understand the need of a power line around for connection but definitively not the right place

 

[Smurf1976]

When the HV infrastructure was first put in, everyone was cheering it on, as it meant an improvement in their standard of living.

Yep.

Clipped from an advertisement run fully 90 years ago, December 1932:

The basic idea of exploiting a natural resource to produce cheap electricity as a basis to attract industry to a location is by no means a new one. A different natural resource at the opposite end of the country but it's the same basic idea.

Technical detail aside, the basic business model is nothing new.

 

[Value Collector]

No apparently, as @basilio says, you just grow the stuff underneath the panels, down next to the gnomes, the fairies and the harvesters. ?

I saw a video online a while ago about a winery in California installing solar panels above their vines.

It turns out that if vines receive to much sun it actually lowers their production and increases water usage.

The winery was planning on installing the panels in such a way that the can be tilted to allow sun onto the vines at optimal times and shade the crops once they have received enough sun for the day.

 

[Value Collector]

This is a French grape grower doing it, the original guys I watched were Californian, so maybe it’s becoming a wide spread thing in the grape industry.

 

[frugal.rock]

Note, twiggy pulled out of this project some time ago...

Quote re sacking of 700 people from Fortescue.

Forrest said Fortescue would in the immediate future focus on generating and distributing clean power, rather than use that clean power to make hydrogen.

“We’re going to stay where we know we can win, and that’s green electricity. Nothing beats green electricity,” he said.

Huh?

Sun Cable Australia-to-Singapore renewable energy project wins transmission link approval​

Sun Cable Australia-to-Singapore renewable energy project wins transmission link approval

Sun Cable has obtained principal environmental approval from the Northern Territory for Australia-Asia PowerLink interconnector.

www.energy-storage.news