Throwing light on solar farms

Summit Sun
Thursday 7/2/2008 Page: 5

Clean Energy for Eternity founder and President, Dr Matthew Nott, is hoping to get the Jindabyne community behind an idea that would see a solar farm developed and Jindabyne become part of a centre of excellence for renewable energy. Dr Nott will be discussing the idea of a solar farm that could supply all of Jindabyne's power needs at a meeting at the Bowling Club this Friday, February at 5.30pm. The meeting will be chaired by Snowy River Shire Mayor, Richard Wallace.

The first solar farm project is likely to be in Bega Valley Shire after previous Member for Eden-Monaro, Gary Nairn, offered $100,000 which was then matched by incoming Member, Mike Kelly who promised up to $1million for the implementation of the pilot project. Dr Nott said: "The concept is generating a lot of excitement. The big scale of the project means that there are big cost advantages and opportunities for investment by the local community."

According to Dr Nott 2 megawatts of electricity can be generated from a solar farm on a 10ha site. "If we are serious about climate change then we need to shut down coal fired power stations," Dr Nott said, adding that he had been offered 15 sites for the Bega project. He has already had discussions with Country Energy over the proposal and believes that the solar farms are a quick way of getting renewable energy up and running. He is hoping to get Bega's solar farm running and would then like to see Jindabyne do something similar which would help to create a region that is a centre of excellence in renewable energy.