More Solar To Power Up In Mareeba Shire

Image: Danmiles

Queensland’s Mareeba region will be racking up a bunch of solar panels in the near future after another large-scale PV project was granted the go-ahead last week.

Situated not far from Cairns, Mareeba Shire covers more than 53,000 square kilometres and has a population of just shy of 22,000. As well as having plenty of space, a very attractive aspect of the area to solar developers is its claim to 300 days of sunshine a year.

Back in September, we reported  Mareeba Shire Council approved plans for Mareeba Solar Farm, a facility that will consist of 196,000 solar panels and generate more than 147 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year.

Last week, Council approved another solar farm in Mareeba – a 75MW facility to be constructed by Tilt Renewables.

The clean power station will feature 200,000 solar panels and Council states it will provide enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 21,000 homes, while avoiding 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Tilt Renewables has several other solar projects at various stages across Australia, including  Snowtown North – a 45MW solar facility proposed for a site near Snowtown in South Australia that will incorporate up to 25MW of battery storage. In September, the company received the green light from Queensland’s Western Downs Regional Council to proceed with Western Downs Solar Farm; a 250MW project.

It seems Mareeba is rapidly becoming a popular spot for PV project developers. Late last week, a third application for a solar farm was submitted to council according to the Cairns Post (paywall). No other details are currently available on that project.

On a much smaller scale, also approved at last week’s meeting was the installation of a 29.9kW solar panel system at the Mareeba Heritage Museum and Tourist Information Centre.

Small business is also getting into solar in Mareeba. Another approval at the council meeting related to a proposed car wash business, which intends installing solar power “to further demonstrate the site’s commitment to environmentally friendly development.”

Mareeba’s residents are making good use of the 300 days of sunshine a year. Clean Energy Regulator data indicates more than 1,532 small scale solar power systems are installed in the 4880 postcode (Mareeba district), representing approximately 7.2MW of collective capacity.  The 2016 Census put the 4880 postcode population at 13,295, which works out to around 540 watts of small-scale solar PV per person – a great effort!