New Zealand solar farm developer Lightyears Solar has turned on the Waingawa Solar Farm, a 4.7 MWp community agrivoltaic project.
Built by sub-contractors Downer, Sol Srv Solar Services, and local contractors, the project connects to distributor Powerco’s network, to provide electricity for the surrounding district and grow the renewable proportion of power supply in the area.
Leasing six hectares of land long-term, on a 12-hectare working farm, the 7,700 solar panels are raised off the ground to allow livestock to graze. It offers a lifetime carbon offset equivalent to planting nearly 60,000 trees over 30 years.
The power produced is purchased by New Zealand’s largest independent electricity generator and renewables developer Manawa Energy under a power purchase agreement (PPA).
Image: Lightyears Solar, New Zealand
Lightyears Solar Co-founder and Director Matt Shanks said the landowners at Waingawa Solar Farm have also built a holiday property on their land and see solar as another way to diversify their income from the property whilst providing long term security.
“We are receiving a lot of interest from farmers wanting solar on their land – the old no.8-wire mentality is back – and smart farmers have always appreciated getting more from less,” Shanks said.
“In this case that’s more value out of farmable land in the form of agricultural output and power or leasing output. The desire for agrivoltaic farming is entering the national consciousness, the demand is rocketing compared to just two years ago. Landowners are also doing their research, coming to us already well-informed about solar and the opportunities it provides.”
In March this year, solar generation hit record highs in New Zealand and Lightyears’ medium-sized solar farms are now a vital to the national solar infrastructure,” Shanks said.
“We complement the larger scale solar farms, slotting into communities around the country and connecting to the local distribution networks.”
“Increasing the amount of new generation is critical to help lower wholesale electricity prices and power bills for everyone. The size of our solar farms also mean they can be constructed quickly to provide renewable energy to the grid at a time when it’s desperately needed,” he said.
Shanks added that solar also works well with New Zealand’s existing hydro and wind, making the grid more diverse and it provides energy when it is most used, in the daytime for business, industry and irrigation.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.