Sunshine Coast lives up to its name with solar farm power boost

Courier Mail
28 June 2011, Page: 8

THE Sunshine Coast's future as a green energy producer will take a huge step forward tomorrow with the expected approval of Queensland's biggest solar farm and an application for a second facility. A 50,000 Janet facility, worth an expected 540 million, is set to be backed by Sunshine Coast Regional Council for a 20ha site on former caneland at Valdora, halfway between Yandina and Coolum.

It will feed enough power into the grid for 2500 homes and provide a cutting edge model that could be rolled out throughout the state. The local firm behind the project, Energy Parks Australia, told The Courier Mail it would also submit plans tomorrow for a 12,000 panel "solar park" on 32ha at Cootharaba, in the Noosa hinterland.

Director Jason Hague said the Sunshine Coast was well on the way to becoming Australia's most sustainable region and his company had plans for several more projects to create localised renewable energy solutions. Mr Hague said he was confident of their success as they were aligned with council's vision to achieve 20% renewable energy by the year 2020. He said new developments such as Caloundra South and Palmview presented considerable opportunities to develop solar parks that could help save residents from soaring power bills.

"We are very excited about incorporating future energy parks into greenfield sites, which will shape the future of the Coast", Mr Hague said. "There's pressure on every level to deploy green energy options and our projects provide the blueprint for the ever increasing energy needs of modern communities". The second solar farm, to be considered for approval later in the year, would be worth $9 million and be funded by a single investor, a Sunshine Coast businessman confident of green energy's future.

Mr Hague said he hoped work would begin on the Valdora property by the end of the year. He said the clean energy produced could be sold to energy providers, or retailed to individual residents or businesses. A handful of large solar farms are being established by other companies in NSW and Western Australia, but the technology is already used in Europe and Asia. Early this month, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Premier Anna Bligh announced a jointly funded $1.2 billion gas plant at Chinchilla in the state's west.