Antinuclear

Australia is a huge landmass with an incredible amount of sunshine, so should our farmers be able to farm the sun’s rays?

This is what is currently taking place in India, with the world’s largest solar farm being built in agricultural Karnataka in south-west India. The Karnataka Solar Power Development Corporation is building the solar farm, known as the Pavagada Solar Park, which will see solar panels spreading over 13,000 acres of land and over five villages.

The solar farm will generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity, a figure that translates to approximately 4 per cent of Australia’s total energy needs.

Farmers lease land to increase income

In order to build the solar farm, more than 2,300 Indian subsistence farmers are leasing their land to the energy company and making more income than they can make through traditional farming.Each farmer will be paid 21,000 rupees per acre per month, a figure that equates to approximately $420. This rental income is more than double their income from farming and the Indian government is fully supportive of the project.

The Government of Karnataka’s Minister for Energy, Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar, said: “We have set the goal to source at least 20 per cent of people’s power requirements from renewable projects”.”The park will create employment and act as an incentive for farmers to explore new opportunities of socio-economic growth.

This ambitious project, spanning five villages, looks at farmers as the key partners and also as the beneficiaries. The Pavagada Solar Park is creating new job opportunities.”

Tim Buckley, director of Energy Finance Studies at the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said the collaborative model could work for Australian farmers. “It is a model that could work in Australia, but because of the size of Australian farms the energy companies would not need to negotiate with any more than one or two farmers — instead of the 2,300 farmers like in India,” he said. “We wouldn’t need farms on that scale, and on a large pastoral property a medium-sized solar farm would not impact on the grazing operation.”

Renewable energy projects growing

Forecasts are also firming up about how rapidly renewable energy is growing throughout Australia.

Green Energy Market’s Tristan Edis in Melbourne is forecasting Australian solar installs would treble to possibly 3.5GW in 2018.   It is predicted that Australian solar installations will treble to 3,500MW in 2018.  He also estimates there are 4,960MW of renewable energy projects under construction right now across Australia in wind and solar combined.

And almost all of that growth is occurring in regional Australia.

Mr Buckley said Premier Anna Palaszczuk recently boasted there were 3,000 construction jobs being generated right now just in Queensland renewables.

Tom Burmester from The Australia Institute has done a study on renewable energy jobs backing up the view that renewable energy was already creating jobs. He said the Australia Institute research shows that, depending on what policy settings were put in place, between 10,000 and 35,000 jobs would be generated by renewable energy projects.

Mr Buckley said this was all happening despite a reduction in the renewable energy rebate schemes. “It is counterintuitive to drop government assistance, but business and the big corporates are increasingly going with solar and other renewables,” he said.