Six months after construction began, the first solar panels have been installed at the Goorambat East Solar Farm.
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The solar farm has placed 30 of the more than 500,000 panels and installed 50 per cent of piles with help from an AI-operated robot.
The project is a three-way collaboration between French companies ENGIE and Bouygues Construction with electrical connectivity work done by AusNet.
The farm is the biggest in Victoria, sitting at 630 hectares or 900 soccer pitches.
Construction began in mid-2024 and ENGIE general manager of engineering and asset delivery Leigh Newbury said it is on track to finish early next year.
“At the moment the weather has been very, very kind to us, so we are generally ahead of schedule,” Mr Newbury said.
“Most of the construction activity should be finished and complete around February/March next year.
“We've had some really good contract initiatives both by Bouygues and AusNet to keep us ahead of schedule ... we're looking to have first export of energy by the end of the year and full export by the middle of next year.”
Mr Newbury said that connecting the solar panels to the current grid is an “extensive amount” of work.
“We have AusNet doing the connection into the main grid, so they look after the poles and wires and all the high voltage lines here,” he said.
Once the solar farm is up and running, it is expected to stay operating for 30 years without interference.
“This entire farm has a design life and an operating life of 30 years,” Mr Newbury said.
“We know that a lot of the equipment here, particularly the solar panels and the tracking systems, can go much longer than that, potentially another 10 years or beyond.”
Once the panels reach the end of their lifespan, they could be looking at a “complete rehabilitation”.
“The worst case scenario is we need to come through and do a deconstruction activity, so ... all of the solar panels get removed and sent away for reuse,” Mr Newbury said.
The site has about 250 people working at the moment, but an additional 50 are expected throughout the construction.
“The way that they've done the procurement of people here, there is a huge amount of local people, local contractors,” Mr Newbury said.
From a land perspective, there were little changes to the ground, however trees got the short end of the stick.
In a consultant’s town planning report about the Goorambat East Solar Farm, 67 scattered trees were to be removed.
“We haven't had to do massive changes to the landscape itself,” Mr Newbury said.
“We did have to remove a significant amount trees unfortunately for the solar optimisation and the layout, but to compensate that we've planted over 14,000 trees on site and we have an obligation through the planning permit to make sure that they mature and grow.
“We've got a five-year plan to make sure that we have the right strike rate for them to grow.”
Their strategy to manage the grass and weeds can go one of two ways Mr Newbury said — one is changing the grass that grows underneath and the other is the use of animals or crops.
“Agri-voltaics is where we might have bees, where we might have sheep, where we can put crops underneath it,” Mr Newbury said.
“We’re doing that activity at the moment and starting to talk to some of the landowners here and they've got some first rights associated with that.”
It is a 250 megawatt project, which is the maximum electricity the solar farm could generate at any one time.
For comparison, it is equivalent to 105,000 average Australian homes, or 1.25 million kilometres in an electric car.
“The electricity eventually generated by the solar farm will be injected into the high voltage power transmission lines that run between Glenrowan and Shepparton,” Mr Newbury said.
“The energy will be used within the larger regional area and is also used to ensure local power quality and supply.”
When the project is finished, they intend to have an official opening, with locals being the first to enter the scene.
“The other thing we’re talking about, is how do we arrange for community drop in or education from schools,” Mr Newbury said.
“We're looking at ways that we can share the knowledge and share the project with the locals getting special invitations.”
Outside of a special invitation to the opening, locals are invited to decide where $75,000 goes.
“Since the start of last year we've been engaging with the community,” Mr Newbury said.
“When we hit operations or get into the operational phase, we’ve got an annual community fund that'll be worth $75,000.
“So in the near future we will be asking for people to nominate, to get onto that committee and help us with the activity associated with setting that up and the ongoing community activity.”
Journalist