Direction of Dannevirke solar farm project changed

Rangitāne o Tamaki nui-ā-Rua president Mavis Mullins said the IPO was prompted by residents’ concerns.

“They did not want any more land to be used for any activity other than the purpose for which it was taken, and we acquiesced.”

Flotation is relatively new but has been proven, Mullins said.

Wimsett said the project was ambitious and that solar panels are not often placed on water.

“The trick is that they try to work as a pond for wastewater and collect electricity from sunlight, so they are kind of in competition because there is biological activity in these ponds that need UV for the insects to do their job.”

He said they chose this particular pond because it was the fourth pond at the end of the processing line and was built to accommodate stormwater runoff.

The panels would be transparent so UV could still get through.

“What will actually stop the sunlight from getting through will be the floating pods, so of that 40%, roughly 20% will be the solar panels and 20% will be the actual pods, so we will get a reduction in the amount of light reaching this particular pond and therefore Our engineers are evaluating this, so these are detailed aspects we are working on right now.”

The project had a key deadline of March 31, 2025 for construction to be completed and at least 70 customers to sign up with a new retailer who would benefit from surpluses from the council’s electricity payment.

“That’s why this is viewed as a power purchase agreement rather than a municipal construction,” Wimsett said, noting that the municipality did not assume the risks in building it.

He said Rangitāne, or the charity, would be paid by the municipality as the electricity supplier and the excess would be transmitted to the electricity grid.

Mullins said he was relieved that the Department for Business, Innovation and Employment, which provided Rangitāne with a grant to pilot a solar farm, was moving in the right direction.

Councilors asked a variety of questions about unintended consequences and risk management, detailing how to anticipate and manage them.

Mayor Bryan Nicholson reminded councilors that the aim of the report was to provide an update in terms of the change in direction, but there was still a lot of work to do behind the scenes.