Antinuclear

South Australia Riverland farmers get new crop – harvesting the sun

Solar venture in SA Riverland aims to make abandoned crop land productive again, ABC News, 10 Feb 16  By Isabel Dayman Solar energy might be a saviour for some South Australian Riverland fruit growers who abandoned their crops and land during severe drought late last decade.

A test site with 800 solar panels on the roof of an old storage depot at Renmark has been set up by Yates Electrical Services director Mark Yates to show what might be possible.

“We wanted to use this as a test case to see what the viability of the small-scale generation plants could be and whether they could be implemented in a community,” he said.

“We’d like to get 12 months of full data — that way we can draw a really clear picture and be really transparent to show people what the costs are and what the returns are.”

Mr Yates said the owners of vacant fruit blocks might be able to generate a profit from the abandoned land, which he said would be preferable to letting big investors set up large-scale solar operations and take any profits elsewhere.

“With our small-scale solar farms, 100 per cent of the profits that the system generates can be retained by the local community,” he said.

“Traditional methods of generating income are always going to [be there], but I suppose this is just a way we can introduce a completely new market to the area.”…….. The Renmark solar test site is expected to start generating power from the region’s abundant sunshine by the end of this month, and it is planned to be sold into the electricity grid. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-08/solar-plan-a-ray-of-hope-for-riverland’s-former-fruit-growers/7149150

February 10, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | solar, South Australia