Tamworth Regional Council To Vote On Solar Panel Rollout Tonight

Image: Public Domain

New South Wales’ Tamworth Regional Council is set to vote on whether to proceed with the installation of solar power systems at a dozen Council-owned sites.

Tamworth‘s postcode is home to an estimated 3,570 small scale solar power systems under 100kW capacity¹ (Clean Energy Regulator figures), representing 16.8MW of capacity. While approximately 17% of dwellings in the Tamworth region have solar panels installed according to Council, less than 1% of 300 council owned sites requiring electricity have solar PV (so just one or two). A search on “solar” on the TRC web site returns one result – and that’s in relation to solar radiation.

After tonight, it may not be long before this changes.

Council has some very good motivation for going solar aside from the carbon reduction aspect. Based on current electricity market prices, it is expecting an increase in electricity costs of at least 30% under a new contract for its large sites in 2019.

Most of the proposed PV projects are considered small-scale, with the exception of a system at Westdale Wastewater Treatment Plant. Here’s the list of various sites and capacities:

• Australian Country Music Hall Of Fame: 20kW
• Lockheed St. Taminda Depot: 50kW
• Sports Dome, Hillvue: 10kW
• Barraba Pool: 10kWkW
• Community Centre (Darling St.): 20kW
• TRECC: 20kW
• Tamworth Library: 80kW
• AELEC, Hillvue: 50kW
• Westdale Waste Water Treatment Plant (blowers): 200kW
• Westdale Waste Water Treatment Plant (inlet works): 50kW
• Barraba Water Treatment Plant: 30kW
• Dongowan Dam: 50kW

The above represents a total capacity of 590kW.

Should Council vote to proceed with the 12 solar PV projects, the total cost including some wiggle room of potential structural work would be $876,625, while the savings per annum would be in the region of $117,983 – making for a simple payback of under 7.5 years.

The background on the vote tonight can be viewed here (PDF).

Last year, Tamworth Regional Council voted in favour of a $248,000 LED and solar energy project for Ray Walsh House (where Council has its chambers) that would reportedly save it  $84,000 a year on electricity bills. The current status of that project isn’t clear, but the solar power system doesn’t appear to have been installed as yet.

UPDATE September 26: According to the Northern Daily Leader, Council last night approved solar installations at 11 of the facilities. However, Cr. Russell Webb has blocked a bid to install solar at the AELEC centre, apparently on the basis of aesthetics.