Adelaide Advertiser
Wednesday 4/6/2008 Page: 12
AN $8 million State Government injection into a solar power project at the Wayville Showground will create the largest rooftop solar installation in Australia, Premier Mike Rann says. The new $42 million Goyder Pavilion at the showground is being built with $35 million of funding from the former Coalition federal government. The 26,000sq m pavilion replaces Centennial Hall, which was pulled down last year. Mr Rann and Royal Show chief executive John Rothwell yesterday said the $8 million of state funding would pay for 10,000sqm of solar panels, rather than the previously planned 100sgm.
The photovoltaic solar plant will power the new pavilion and a third of the showground, cutting its annual $200,000 power bill by about 40 per cent, Royal Show president Charlie Downer said. The rooftop solar installation will be five times larger than Australia's next biggest, at Melbourne's Victoria Markets. Adelaide Airport's rooftop solar plant would now be the third largest in Australia.
Mr Rann said once installed, the showgrounds' 1000 kilowatt system would generate 1400 megawatt hours of electricity a year, equivalent to the average electricity consumption of 200 houses. Mr Rann and Mr Downer said aside from the economic benefits, the solar project was about "making a big environmental statement." The Premier said SA was "leading the way" in green energy.
Next year, SA will "reach its target of 20 per cent of our power coming from either wind or solar power", Mr Rann said. "That's five years ahead of target and a target that critics said when we first announced it was unachievable." But Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith accused Mr Rann of "gross hypocrisy", pointing out that from July 1 the Government would cut solar hot water rebates.
Greens MP Mark Parnell called on the Premier to "stop his empty renewable energy spin", saying: "Virtually all the solar and wind power produced in SA is bought, paid for and consumed by people interstate."
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